
UNITED STATES OF AMEEIOA. I 





"LEAD ME 



TO 



THE ROCK." 



BY/TH] 



Kev. t. w. hooper, d.d. 



"Remember the words which I spake unto you while I was yet 
present with you." 



PHILADELPHIA: 

PEESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION 
AND SABBATH-SCHOOL WORK, 

1334 CHESTNUT STREET. 



\ \%^'\J 






^-R 






COPYKIGHT, 1892, BY 

THE TRUSTEES OF THE 

PRESBYTEKIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION 
AND SABBATH-SCHOOL WORK. 



All RigMs Reserved, 



Westcott & Thomson, 
Slereotypers and Electrotypers^ Philada. 



TO THE 

BELOVED PEOPLE IN VIRGINIA AND ALABAMA 

AMONG WHOM, 

FOR MORE THAN THIRTY YEARS, AMID SUNSHINE AND 

SHADOWS, IT HAS BEEN HIS BLESSED PRIVILEGE 

TO LABOR IN THE GOSPEL, 

THIS LITTLE VOLUME IS 

AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED 

BY THEIR 



OLD PASTOE. 



i 



CONTENTS. 



PAET I. 

PAOE 

Lead Me to the Eock . . . • 7 



PART II. 
The Shadow of the Rock 23 

PART III. 
A Model Christian Family 45 

PART IV. 
A WonD TO THE Weary 65 

Introduction 67 

CHAPTER I. 
An Antidote for Worry 71 

CHAPTEE II. 
Mists Cleared Away 79 

CHAPTER III. 

Not Sought, but Found 86 

5 



6 CONTENTS. 

CHAPTEE IV. 

PAGE 

The Burden Lifted 94 

CHAPTEE V. 
Seeking to Save 101 

CHAPTER VI. 
A WonD OF Eeproach 109 

CHAPTEE VII. 
The House of Sorrow 119 

CHAPTEE VIII. 
A Word to Mothers 127 

CHAPTEE IX. 
Not a Word, but a Look 136 

CHAPTEE X. . 
A Word to the Penitent 145 

PAET V. 
Love-Messages from Paul 155 



PART I 



LEAD ME TO THE ROCK. 



LEAD ME TO THE ROCK. 



"PvAVID was ^^a man after God's own heart/' 
but David was a man of varied experience. 
In his psalms we find evidence of the fact that he 
was not always on the hill-top, but often down in 
the valley. In the sixty-first psalm we find a 
prayer which will well express the thoughts and 
feelings of all saints : " From the end of the earth 
I will cry unto thee, when my heart is over- 
whelmed : lead me to the rock that is higher 
than I." 

What better prayer than that can a Christian use 
w4ien he is beset by doubts as to his acceptance w^ith 
God ? It is not every Christian who has such an 
'[ assurance of hope." Satan so often '' changes 
himself into an angel of light/' and thus leads the 
soul to hope for salvation before it has actually 
'^ cast itself upon the mercy of God in Christ/' 
that there are many who cannot truly say, ^' I 
know that I have passed from death unto life." 



10 LEAD ME TO THE ROCK. 

Satan has such a subtle way of infusing spiritual 
galvanism into dead souls, and thus seeming to 
" quicken them into a newness of life/^ while it is 
only spasmodic and temporary, instead of lasting 
and eternal, that what an old minister once said is 
true : " Some people's doubts are worth more than 
other people's certainties/' The fact that they are 
doubtful implies a deep consciousness of sins, and 
this is always needed before we can appreciate and 
apply the infinite fullness of Christ. There is a 
genuine " assurance of hope," but the counterfeit 
of the true coin is in wide circulation. This has 
a tendency too often to weaken individual effort 
and to cramp the energies of the soul. It has a 
tendency to stir up spiritual pride and to lead to a 
forgetfulness of God as the ouly source of strength. 
Paul could say at one time, " But I keep under my 
body, and bring it into subjection : lest that by any 
means, when I have preached to others, I m^yself 
should be a castaway." And at another tinie he 
said, '' For when I am weak, then am I strong." 

If, then, God is leading you along through doubts 
and darkness, and you are often brought to wonder 
whether you are a Christian or not, do not be dis- 
couraged and disheartened. " Lead me to the rock 
that is higher than I." Let that be your daily 



LEAD ME TO THE ROCK. 11 

prayer. If your doubts are founded upon a deep 
sense of indwelling sin and personal unworthiness ; 
if you have them only when you look at your own 
hearty and still feel that Christ is able and willing 
to save and waiting to save, struggle on, pray on, 
trust on. God is with you. The Spirit still dwells 
in your heart, convincing you of sin and speaking 
to you of that ^^ blood of sprinkling, that speaketh 
better things than that of Abel.^^ Let the good 
Spirit lead you to that rock, and though your life 
shall be ^^ one day,^^ which to your own mind shall 
be ^^ neither day nor night,'^ but only twilight, 
yet '^at evening-time it shall be light.^^ These 
shadows that now come over you shall be swept 
away, and on the "Delectable Mountains ^^ you 
shall stand in the evening of life and look out 
upon "new heavens and a new earth, wherein 
dwelleth righteousness.'^ 

Again, you feel that you have lost much of your 
former love for Christ and for holy things. Under 
the pressure of worldly cares, or the fascination of 
wordly pleasure, you feel conscious of a real spirit- 
ual declension. Instead of growing in grace, you 
are conscious of having grown in worldliness and 
vanity. Religion seems to be gloomier than it once 
appeared. Religious worship is more tiresome. 



12 LEAD ME TO THE ROCK. 

The Bible is not so pleasing and profitable. You 
do not read it as a pleasure, but from a sense of duty. 
Secret prayer, this closest communion with God, is 
not a delight, as it used to be, but it is only the con- 
straint of conscience that forces you, in a careless 
and perfunctory way, to hurry over your stereo- 
typed form of petitions and thanks before lying 
down to rest or before entering on the unknown 
duties and trials of a new day. 

And thus, instead of widening the mark that sep- 
arates you from the world, you have been constantly 
narrowing it and allowing it to be obliterated. You 
know that if a stranger were to judge by your daily 
walk and conversation he would never suppose that 
you were a member of the Churcli. You know 
yourself that you are not ^^ showing forth the 
beauty of holiness'^ by a consistent life. You 
know that you are full of passions and principles, 
and follow habits and practices that are unbecoming 
a Christian, one professing godliness, a follower of 
the meek and lowly Jesus. 

If you could see a duplicate of yourself, your 
own character and actions in another body, you 
would never suppose that such a person was pro- 
fessing to live under the injunction " Occupy till I 
come,'^ or ^^ Be ye holy, for I am holy,^^ or ^^ Ab- 



LEAD ME TO THE BOCK. 13 

stain from all appearance of evil/^ or ^^ Whether 
therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, 
do all to the glory of God/^ 

It is evident, then, that you are cold and careless 
as regards your duty as a Christian. And yet you 
need not despair, for there is still hope for you. The 
same sunshine that once melted your heart is seek- 
ing to penetrate and enlighten your soul. The 
same God whose blood once washed away your sins 
is still ready to pardon, and his blood is as precious 
as ever. It still cleanseth from all sin. The same 
Spirit who once led you to Jesus is waiting to lead 
you to him again. Then let your prayer be, '^ Lead 
me to the rock that is higher than I,^^ and God will 
hear you and answer you, and "' restore unto you 
the joy of [his] salvation.'^ 

Or, perhaps, while you have felt thus cold and 
careless, neglectful and worldly-minded, now you 
feel penitent and sad ; you mourn over your de- 
parture from primitive piety, and long to feel a 
return of those spiritual joys. Your heart grows 
sad at the memory of your sins and your forgetful- 
ness of God. You have come to yourself, and 
are amazed at the distance you have drifted down 
the current w^hile in this w^orldly dream. You are 
depressed in spirit, and while you resolve to repent 



14 LEAD ME TO THE BOCK. 

and reform, you break these resolutions. When 
you would do good, evil is present with you. The 
law that is in your members wars against the 
spirit. The spirit seems to be willing, but the 
flesh is weak. 

You forsake one sin, and then another; you leave 
oif one bad habit, and then another. You try to 
read God^s Word, but your mind wanders. You 
try to speak of your troubles to some Christian 
friend, but before you are aware of it an unholy 
diffidence leads you to change the conversation. 
You try to pray, but even on your knees the 
thoughts will wander and the heart does not feel. 
The Spirit seems unwilling to help your infirmities 
and teach you how to pray. And so, with Paul, 
in a similar experience, you cry out, '^ O wretched 
man that I am ! who shall deliver me from this 
body of death f' 

^^Lead me to the rock that is higher than I.^^ 
" Create in me a clean hearfc, O God ; and renew a 
right spirit within me.^^ ^^ Purge me with hyssop, 
and I shall be clean : wash me, and I shall be 
whiter than snow.'^ ^^ Make me to hear joy and 
gladness; that the bones which thou hast broken 
may rejoice.'^ ^^Hide thy face from my sins, and 
blot out all mine iniquities.'^ " Cast me not away 



LEAD ME TO THE BOCK. 15 

from thy presence ; and take not thy Holy Spirit 
from me/^ Let this be your prayer/ and God will 
hear you. Let these be your petitions, and God 
will answer you, and enable you with Paul to say, 
" I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord.'' 
He will lead you to that rock, and you will find 
that Christ is "the shadow of a great rock in a 
weary land.'' 

Again, God has sent on you various afflictions. 
For a long time you have been suffering with sick- 
ness, and, like Job, God has laid his hand heavily 
upon you. At times you feel well, and the world 
seems to smile in beauty all around you. The warm 
blood flows healthfully in your veins, and it is a 
real pleasure to live in this beautiful world which a 
Father's love has made for us to dwell in. You 
enjoy the society of friends, and take delight in 
ministering to the wants of your household. Life, 
with all its business and enjoyments, its loves and 
friendships, its sweet sympathies and charities, is 
really a pleasure. You love to live, and you enjoy 
life as a blessing sent and continued of God, the 
giver of all good. 

But most of the time there is sickness somewhere 
about your body. The blood becomes hot and 
feverish. The temples throb with anguish. The 



16 LEAD ME TO THE BOCK. 

whole nervous system becomes disordered, and with 
every noise there is a convulsion and a jar, as if the 
whole physical system were dissolved into quiver- 
ing, nervous and trembling muscles. 

This sickness of the body reacts upon the mind 
and heart. That intimate sympathy which exists 
between them is aroused, and you look out upon 
the world through a colored and distorted medium. 
The sunshine looks dark, and pleasures seem to 
stagnate into pestilential pools. Friendships are 
called in question, suspicions are aroused, gloom 
and melancholy depress your spirits, and you feel 
that you are a burden to the world, and life is a 
burden to yourself. 

Under this curious depression fancy is aroused, 
and before you know it there are doubts in your 
mind as to the goodness and justice and mercy of 
God. These doubts clear away, and their very 
existence causes you to doubt your acceptance in 
the Beloved. Religious melancholy succeeds, and 
then hopeless gloom settles down upon your soul. 

Is it thus that you have been afflicted? Has 
your heavenly Father sent sore trials upon your 
health, and thus upon your happiness? '^Lead me 
to the rock that is higher than I.'^ Let that be 
your prayer. God may be only leading you through 



LEAD ME TO THE BOCK 17 

much tribulation into the kiugdom. He may be 
only causing you to trust more to him who is the 
Physician of ^souls. The Psalmist said^ ^' It was 
good for me that I was afflicted." If earth had no 
pains and sufferings we could never appreciate the 
joys and the rest of heaven. But Paul says, ^^ For 
our light affliction, which is but for a moment, 
worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal 
weight of glory; while we look not at the things 
which are seen, but at the things which are not 
seen : for the things w^hich are seen are tem- 
poral; but the things which are not seen are 
eternal." 

Perhaps God has caused some of my readers to 
endure the loss of loved ones. It may be a recent 
bereavement, or the grass may be growing upon 
their graves ; but, recent or remote, you tread light- 
ly around them. You miss their well-remembered 
voices, their kindly greetings, their loving smiles. 
There is a great vacancy in your heart which this 
earth can never fill. You hide away your grief 
from the eyes of the world, and yet deep down in 
the soul there is a little slab, and on it is written, 
^' Sacred to the memory." No other heart can see 
that monument which your love has erected, but 
there, all alone with your own soul, you weep bit- 



18 LEAD ME TO THE ROCK. 

ter tears when you realize the fact that you will 
never see them again in the flesh. The heart may 
be very sad while the face is wreathed with smiles, 
and there is many a silent grief that is rankling in 
the soul that seems freest from sorrow. Every true 
heart has a graveyard in itself, w^here are buried 
forms that we once loved and hopes that we once 
cherished. 

But if God has taken away your loved ones, he 
has done it for your own good. He may wash only 
to draw you more closely to himself. He may have 
intended only thus to teach you to ^^ set your affec- 
tion on things above, and not on things on the 
earth. '^ Do not grieve with a secret and silent 
sorrow over the memory of those whom you have 
loved and lost. Let your prayer be, '' Lead me to 
the rock that is higher than I.^^ If it be answered, 
you will find comfort and consolation in the sym- 
pathizing heart of a suffering Saviour. Learn to 
prize the rod that smites, and you will find it the 
rod of a friend, not of an enemy — the rod of re- 
proof, not that of anger. 

Last of all, some of you are warned by the gray 
hairs that mantle your brow, and by the furrows 
where care has traced its history of saduess and 
sickness and sorrow, that you will soon be passing 



LEAD ME TO THE ROCK, 19 

away. The tottering step, the trembling hand, the 
bent form, the dimmed eye, the deafened ear, all 
remind you that soon "the silver cord will be 
loosed, and the golden bowl be broken/^ You look 
over the changing past. You remember its seasons 
of joy and sorrow, of light and shadow, of holiness 
and sin. You remember the many loved ones who 
have gone before you. You call back the merry 
days of childhood, the bounding hopes of youth, 
the stern realities of manhood. The snows of these 
accumulated years have frosted your head and their 
suns have beamed softly into your heart. You look 
forward to meet the great unknown, hastening so 
rapidly to meet you, and while you cannot tell what 
a day may bring forth, you are obliged to feel that 
you are almost there. 

Dear old pilgrim ! Weary traveler through this 
weary world, let me give you " a word in season for 
him that is weary.^^ " Lead me to the rock that is 
higher than IP Let that be your daily, constant 
prayer, and then will be verified these words of the 
old hymn : 

"E^en down to old age all my people shall prove 
My sovereign, eternal, unchangeable love; 
And when hoary hairs shall their temples adorn, 
Like lambs they shall still in my bosom be borne. 



20 LEAD ME TO THE BOCK. 

"The soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose 
I will not, I will not desert to his foes; 
That soul,, though all hell should endeavor to shake, 
I'll never, no never, no never forsake." 

As regards all these afflictions and trials and dis- 
appointments of life, learn a lesson from the deer. 
When the weather is cool and pleasant, and the 
brooks are babbling in every glen, the deer will 
feed in the lowland. He grazes in the valleys, and 
drinks from the streams that flow in all directions. 
In times of rain every leaf is a little cup of water 
from which he may slake his thirst. But let the 
sun shine bright and hot. The ground is parched 
and burning. The little streams dry up. The 
clouds send down no rain. Under such troubles 
the deer, with unerring instinct, will climb the 
mountain, and away off in some shady nook, some 
sequestered glen, he goes to some familiar spring, 
and there from its cool and limpid waters he drinks 
his fill and is satisfied. 

So should it be w^ith the Christian. In ordinary 
times he may derive comfort and consolation from 
the common scenes of life. He may drink in joy 
from human friendship and love. He finds daily 
blessings to fill him with daily delight. 

But when God withdraws his countenance, and 



LEAD ME TO THE ROCK. 21 

lays his afflicting hand upon him ; when his piety- 
is cold, and his faith is weak, and his spiritual 
strength is wasted ; when sickness comes upon him, 
and death deprives him of those he loves, and seems 
ready to call him hence to be no more ; when, under 
all these combining influences and temptations and 
environments, the earth seems like a barren desert, 
and the very sky becomes as burnished brass above 
him, then let his prayer be, '' Lead me to the rock 
that is higher than I f and, guided by the spirit of 
all grace, let him climb the mountain of God's grace 
and mercy. And if he does, away up on that moun- 
tain he will find the smitten rock of Horeb, and 
there he may drink of that gushing fountain, of 
which if a man drink he shall never thirst. 

''How oft in the conflict, when pressed by the foe, 
I have fled to my Refuge and breathed out my woe; 
How often, when trials like sea-billows roll 
Have I hidden in thee, thou Rock of my soul !" 

" Hiding in thee, hiding in thee, thou blest 

*Rock of Ages,' Tm hiding in thee." 



PART II. 

THE SHADOW OF THE ROCK. 



THE SHADOW OF THE ROOK. 



" As the shadow of a great rock in a weary land." — 
IsA. 32 : 2. 

TT is generally conceded that the most of Isaiah 
has both a primary and a secondary meaning. 
His prophecies, primarily, refer to the then-existing 
nations and kingdoms of the earth. Sometimes they 
refer to some person or to some event of coming 
history. Sometimes the reference is plain and un- 
mistakable, leaving no room for doubt. But in 
other cases, while this primary allusion is manifest, 
there is also a secondary and higher allusion to 
spiritual events that are far off in the distant future. 
While his prophetic mind would rest for a moment 
on these transitory things of time and sense, there 
would be an evident passing on from these to the 
more important and more mysterious realities of 
that other and better "kingdom which is not of 
this world.'^ While he may sometimes speak of the 
peace and glory of the kingdom of Israel, it is only 
to go on, by a natural transition, to that other king- 

25 



26 THE SHADOW OF THE ROCK. 

dom, which is '^ righteousness, and peace, and joy- 
in the Holy Ghost/' 

It is this. double sense that belongs to the text 
and context. " Behold a king shall reign in right- 
eousness, and princes shall rule in judgment/^ This 
has a primary reference to the good king Hezekiah 
and the princes he would gather around him. And 
just so it is with the succeeding clause. Under his 
merciful and benignant reign, "A man shall be as 
an hiding place from the wind, and a covert from 
the tempest ; as rivers of water in a dry place, as the 
shadow of a great rock in a weary land.'' But there 
is also a higher reference to the richer blessings that 
would come with the advent of Jesus Christ our 
Lord. He was to be a king that should reign in 
righteousness. In the highest spiritual sense he 
was to be that man who should be '^ as an hiding 
place from the wind, and a covert from the tem- 
pest." He was to be " as rivers of water in a dry 
place." He was to be "as the shadow of a great 
rock in a weary land." 

The mere figure itself is too plain to need any 
explanation, and yet it does require some experi- 
ence to appreciate its comprehensive beauty. I was 
told by a traveler that he never saw its peculiar 
aptness until he traveled across the plains of New 



THE SHADOW OF THE ROCK, 27 

Mexico. For days together it was impossible for 
them to travel in the intense heat of an almost 
vertical sun. The sand was so hot that it would 
blister the feet, and the glare of the tropical sun 
was almost intolerable. "And now/^ said he, at 
the close of one of these marches, " this text would 
come into my mind: ^ As the shadow of a great rock 
in a weary land.' There are such rocks in the des- 
ert, and when, almost exhausted with intense heat, 
we sat down or fell dovs^n in the shadow of these 
great rocks, no one can imagine the exquisite sense 
of rest and refreshment that would come over our 
weary bodies and spirits. I was not a Christian,'^ 
he said, " but that text would come into my mind, 
and I knew there must be something in the re- 
ligion of Jesus Christ if he was as the shadow of 
a great rock in a weary land.'' 

It will be my object, then, to show that there is 
something in this religion of Jesus ; that there are 
real, practical truths of comfort and consolation in 
this blessed gospel; that in many ways and in a 
most blessed sense Jesus stands to-day as "the 
shadow of a great rock in a weary land." 

It is hardly worth while to say that this world is 
a land of weariness. We have all felt it to be so 
in this inner consciousness of ours where the soul 



28 THE SHADOW OF THE BOCK. 

itself must find its habitation and its home. Apart 
from the fact that the true Christian will be ever 
sighing for " the land that is very far off," it is also 
a fact that this world is not his home. " Here we 
have no continuing city/^ but are pilgrims and 
strangers, traveling to one that is heavenly. We 
feel in all our surroundings that there is a strange- 
ness, an unrest, a want of congeniality with these 
deep longings that pulsate in our souls. There is 
a something in this earthly environment that echoes 
the language of the Bible: "Arise ye, and depart, 
for this is not your rest." We must feel and know 
that we "are dead, and that our life is hid with 
Christ in God." Many a time we may forget our 
destiny and become sinfully absorbed in the activi- 
ties of human life. Many a time we may lose sight 
of our pilgrimage to Canaan, and settle down, like 
Terah, in Ur of the Chaldees. But in our holiest 
moments, and when we are most keenly alive to 
our condition and prospects, we cannot help feeling 
how vain and evanescent are all these things of 
time and sense. And then it is that we sigh for 
the rest, for the peace, for the holiness of heaven. 
And we find the foretaste, the earnest of all that in 
" the shadow of that rock" which stands out so bold 
and so high and so cool in this " weary land." 



THE SHADOW OF THE ROCK, 29 

This feeling of weariness and unrest is sometimes 
caused by the ordinary cares of daily life. I doubt 
if any man ever lived who was perfectly happy. By 
nature some are happier than others, and there are 
some who have more to make them happy so far as 
the good things of this world are concerned. But 
generally there is somewhat of an equalization in 
the providence of God, and what are called "the 
good things ^^ are sometimes more than counter- 
balanced by the evils that follow in their train. 
Thus it was with the rich man of the parable, and 
thus it was with Naaman. For, after recounting 
the riches and honorary titles of Naaman, it is 
added, by way of emphatic contrast, " but he was 
a leper.'^ 

And just so it is with all of us at the present day. 
"We have our cares and troubles, our anxieties, and 
sorrows. Sometimes they are like PauFs " thorn in 
the flesh,^^ that was always lacerating, and some- 
times they are like Peter's unbelief, that once in a 
while leads us to " deny the Lord,'' and then we 
must " go out and weep bitterly." Sometimes there 
is a care that acts like a chronic sore that is always 
festering, and then there are others which, like the 
acute pains of inflammatory rheumatism, are spas- 
modic and temporary, but intensely severe as long 



30 THE SHADOW OF THE ROCK. 

as they last. It is said that there is ^^a skeleton in 
every house ^^ — some domestic trouble known only 
to a few, but painfully humiliating to the family. 
There is some secret feud, some private disgrace, 
some family trial, that belongs only to the house- 
hold. But its secrecy, and the necessity for that 
secrecy, make it a source of unmitigated pain and 
sadness. It would be a relief to have it divulged, 
but this cannot be done with impunity. And so it 
is like a family shut up in a room full of escaped 
gas. Its effects are killing them, and a light would 
purify the air, but a light would cause an explosion. 
And so the whole matter must be kept pent up, 
although it is gradually suffocating that family, 
and it may finally destroy all peace and joy, and 
perhaps blast their reputation in society. 

But it does not require some great secret calamity 
like this to wear out the patience and to exhaust the 
energies of our being. We all have our little cares, 
our little troubles, our little anxieties, whose accu- 
mulated weight wall burden our hearts. There may 
be a thousand shot in a pound, and yet each one has 
its own w^eight and swells the aggregate until it 
reaches a pound. Just so it is in these small cares. 
They have their weight, and together they make 
up a burden which is very grievous to be borne. 



THE SHADOW OF THE BOCK, 31 

The accumulated cares aud anxieties and disappoint- 
ments of life are enough to crush the spirits of most 
men into hopeless gloom, and the responsibilities 
that gather and thicken as we advance in years are 
enough to burden us with future apprehension. 
Apart from our mere surmises and causeless antici- 
pations of evil, there is enough of actual trouble to 
sadden our spirits, and if left to ourselves, in our 
unaided weakness, we would all say, with Job, " I 
am weary of my life, I would not live alway/^ 
No, there is too much vanity and vexation of spirit 
compressed into this short lifetime to make this 
world an everlasting home. And in order to be 
comparatively happy a man must either be a hea- 
then stoic or, what is incomparably better, he must 
be an humble, trusting, submissive Christian. 

For, be it remembered, it is " Jesus only ^^ who 
stands " as the shadow of a great rock in a weary 
land.^^ No human resort can give us any perma- 
nent relief. They only serve to modify the pain, 
and cannot eradicate and destroy it. 

But see how beautifully these words chime amid 
all the din and confusion of every-day life. He is 
'' as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.^^ 
Here is a place of safety, a place where we may lay 
down our burden and rest in the grateful shadow 



32 THE SHADOW OF THE BOCK. 

of that great rock. And when we lie down there, 
weary and oppressed as we may be, what exceeding 
great and precious promises rise up to refresh us, as 
Avater out of the rock and manna from heaven ! 
" Cast thy burden on the Lord and he will sustain 
thee/^ 'Tear not, I am with thee.'^ "I will 
never leave thee nor forsake thee/^ ''All things 
work together for good to them that love God, to 
them who are the called according to his purpose.'^ 
"Be careful for nothing; but in everything by 
prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your 
requests be made known unto God ; and the peace 
of God which passeth all understanding shall keep 
your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.'^ 

Again, how weary does this world seem to us 
when death has once and again entered the home 
circle ! How sad are our spirits under the pressure 
of these sore bereavements that are so familiar to us 
all ! We try to hide away our grief, to forget our 
sorrows, to lose sight of the great calamity. We 
would not murmur and complain, for we know that 
" He doeth all things well.^^ We try, with quiet res- 
ignation, to say from the heart, "Not my will, but 
thine, O Lord, be done." We try to let " the dead 
bury their dead," while in submission and in hope 
we " follow Jesus." But it is hard to keep from 



THE SHADOW OF THE ROCK, 33 

murmuring. It is hard to " be still and know that 
he is God/^ It is hard, very hard, to say from the 
heart, " Even so, Father, for so it seemeth good in 
thy sight/^ AVe did love them so tenderly while 
they were living that we cannot help mourning for 
them now that they are gone. The grave cannot 
hide their forms from our memory, and, though si- 
lent, it cannot shut out those voices that still come 
to us from the lips of our dead. In our dreams 
they still haunt us, and in our waking fancies their 
footsteps still startle us and their familiar faces 
still greet us with their accustomed smile. 

Yes, they are dead, but they are not forgotten ; 
and the mocking phantom of our departed joys still 
stares us in the face with its hollow vacancy. There 
is a mist and a haze in the sunshine, dim by reason 
of our tears, and a cloud has gathered upon our 
souls which the sunlight itself cannot pierce. 
'' Sacred to memory ^^ is engraved upon their tomb- 
stone, and ^^ sacred to memory ^^ is engraved upon 
our hearts. The desolations of time may wear out 
these letters from the marble, but they cannot wear 
out these mystic letters from our hearts. Time 
may corrode or conceal these letters with its lichen 
and its moss, but the mellowing, hallowing, sancti- 
fying influences of time shall only deepen and make 



34 THE SHADOW OF THE ROCK, 

more legible those letters on our hearts, where what 
was so dear to us is buried. 

But when we ^^come to Jesus ^^ with the burden of 
such a grief, see how we find him " as the shadow of 
a great rock in a weary land/^ '' Our light affliction, 
which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far 
more exceeding and eternal weight of glory ; while 
we look not at the things which are seen, but at the 
things which are not seen : for the things which are 
seen are temporal; but the things which are not 
seen are eternal." " Whom the Lord loveth he 
chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he re- 
ceiveth." ^^Now no chastening for the present 
seemeth to be joyous, but grievous : nevertheless, 
afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of right- 
eousness unto them which are exercised thereby. ^^ 
" And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also; 
knowing that tribulation worketh patience ; and pa- 
tience, experience ; and experience, hope : and hope 
maketh not ashamed ; because the love of God is 
shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which 
is given unto us.'^ 

Surely in these "words to the weary" we can 
find " beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, 
and the garment of praise for the spirit of heavi- 
ness." And while " weeping may endure for a 



THE SHADOW OF THE BOCK, 35 

night, joy cometh in the morning/^ It is in the 
shadow of this great rock that you can find rest 
from '' the heat and burden '^ of this day of tribu- 
lation and sorrow. 

" Come, ye disconsolate, where'er ye languish, 
Come to the mercy-seat, fervently kneel ; 
Here bring your wounded hearts, here tell your anguish ; 
Earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot heal." 

Again, in the Christian life there are not only 
" fightings without/^ but there are also " fears with- 
in.'^ The Christian is not only called upon to con- 
tend against the outward foes to peace that beset 
him on every side, but the conflict within is some- 
times more desperate than that which is without. 

" Am I a Christian f " Can I be a child of God 
and an heir of glory ?'^ " Is it possible that such a 
man as I can be truly converted, can be a ^new 
creature in Christ Jesus ' f^ " Is it righf for me to 
think that I have a new heart and a right spirit V^ 
" Is it true that I have been ' brought from darkness 
to light, and from the power of Satan unto God ' ?^^ 
These questions must startle the most of us in these 
days of worldliuess and vanity ; and if they do not, 
it may be simply because we are too callous or too 
indifferent to think about them. We will not take 



3G THE SHADOW OF THE ROCK. ' 

time, in the giddy whirl of business or pleasure, to 
"examine ourselves whether we be in the faith/' 
Being members of the church, with no charges 
against us, we are content to drift on in this delu- 
sive dream until some sudden mishap shall con- 
vince us of our fatal mistake. Our hope may be 
merely that of the hypocrite, but we are too well 
content to examine into its false foundation. We 
do not trouble ourselves to inquire into our true 
state. We may have fled into a " refuge of lies," 
but we are content to stay there until "the hail 
shall sweep it away in the day of judgment.^' 

But while these things are true of many a pro- 
fessing Christian, there are many who tremble 
under that solemn charge of the Apostle : " Let 
him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he 
fall.'' There are very many who have a most 
wholesome fear lest they should be among that 
great number who " have a form of godliness, but 
deny its power;" who "have a name to live, but 
are dead." There are very few of us who are not 
sensibly affected by these words : 

" "When I turn mine eyes within, 
All is dark and vain and wild ; 
Filled with unbelief and sin, 
Can I deem myself a child V 



THE SHADOW OF THE ROCK. 37 

We believe most firmly that if a man is a Chris- 
tian he will be ^Mvept by the power of God, 
through faith, unto salvation/^ But the question 
still remains, Am I a Christian ? Have I been re- 
generated ? Have old things passed away and all 
things become new to me ? Have I been a recipient 
of the renovating, transforming, sanctifying grace 
of God ? Is this change in my conduct a mere ref- 
ormation from without, or is it the result of a gen- 
uine transformation from within? Is it a mere res- 
olution of amendment, changing my conduct before 
the world, or is it a new creation of the heart, by 
the power of God's Spirit, which is the germ of a 
new spiritual life, w^hich is in fact and in truth the 
beginning of *^the life everlasting '^ ? 

Here is the question of vital, paramount, practical 
importance. And that question must be answered 
before the soul can be at ease and at rest. For as 
long as there is doubt on this point there must be 
more or less of disquietude and unrest, of insecurity 
and alarm. And to be self-deceived on this point 
is to be hopelessly lost. 

But the rest and quiet come when we sit down in 
*Hhe shadow of that great rock in a weary land.^^ 
It is here alone that we can find " peace in believ- 
ing.'^ " Therefore being justified by faith, we have 



38 THE SHADOW OF THE ROCK. 

peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ : by 
whom also we have access by faith into this grace 
wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory 
of God/^ ^^ Who is he that condemneth? It is 
Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who 
is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh 
intercession for us/' " Thou wilt keep him in per- 
fect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee, because he 
trusteth in thee/' '' They that trust in the Lord, 
shall be as Mount Zion, which cannot be removed, 
but abideth forever/' 

Again, there is another source of weariness even 
to those who have a comfortable hope that they are 
" in Christ Jesus." The best of them are conscious 
of most grevious spiritual declension. They do not 
give up all the hope that is in them, but there is a 
sense of unworthiness that is very oppressive. They 
are so conscious of weakness of faith and declension 
in piety that their heads are "bowed like a bul- 
rush." They look back over the past with amaze- 
ment and terror. They are astounded to see how 
many shortcomings rise up to confront them. The 
solemn trust committed to them has been betrayed 
over and over again. They have yielded to all 
kinds of temptations. They have done very little 
for the glory of God in the spread of the gospel. 



THE SHADOW OF THE ROCK, 39 

They are amazed to find how often and how griev- 
ously '^ Jesus has been Avounded in the house of his 
friends/' They are astounded at that ^' evil heart 
of unbelief w^hich has led them to depart from .the 
living God/' They cannot understand how it is 
that a professing Christian could be so utterly re- 
gardless of his duty to God, his duty to the Church, 
his duty to himself and his duty to his whole fam- 
ily, for whose religious culture he is responsible to 
God. His Bible has been unread, his prayers un- 
offered, his children uninstructed. Not even the 
form of " Family worship '' is observed, and in his 
intercourse with the world he is almost as wild and 
reckless as the unregenerate sinner. His fellow- 
members regard him with suspicion. The Session 
is only waiting for some good evidence to convict 
him and cast him out, and the devil exults in the 
malicious thought that he can almost claim him as 
his own. 

Surely there is not much here to encourage the 
hope that he can ever be reclaimed. But the grace 
of God once more arrests him in his giddy whirl 
of frivolity and sin. He has planted the seeds of 
worldly pleasure, and a gourd, like that of Jonah's, 
has shot up its tender vine, and the thick foliage 
spreads its ample covering around and above him. 



40 THE SHADOW OF THE BOCK 

But all at once God^s ^S^engeance against sin^^ 
begins to rise and blaze about him. These leaves 
are withered and the branches are scorched until 
they crumble to ashes, and he is left unsheltered, 
unprotected, under the burning rays of that sun of 
God's wrath which is blazing above him. 

And it is only then, when, brought under ^^ our 
God as a consuming fire,'' he is convinced of the 
folly and vanity of all human devices, that God, 
our own chastening but loving Father, comes to 
the rescue. He it is who leads him, '' weary and 
heavy-laden," oppressed with the heat and ready to 
.perish, to '' the shadow of that great rock in a weary 
land." And, as he falls down exhausted in that 
cool shade, he is at ease and at rest. He knows that 
it is not like the checkered sunshine and shade of 
a tree or a vine, but it is the cool, unbroken shade 
of a rocky of ^' a great rock in a weary land." And 
he is safe, '^ safe in the arms of Jesus," resting un- 
der the shadow of his great righteousness. His 
humble, penitent prayer has gone up from a broken 
heart, " Lead me to the rock that is higher than I," 
and, in answer to that simple prayer, he finds him- 
self safe in ^Hhe shadow of that great rock" which 
God himself has projected for weary souls. 

Again, it is hard to tell whether it is piety or the 



THE SHADOW OF THE ROCK. 41 

want of it that makes us use that language of the 
Psalmist, '' Oh that I had wings like a dove ! for 
then would I fly away, and be at rest/^ No doubt 
sometimes it is the very essence of murmuring and 
repining — the very concentration of a dissatisfied, 
unhappy spirit. We are not content to " suffer and 
be strong/^ not content to trust ourselves into the 
hands of our heavenly Father. We grow unhappy 
in our lot, discontented with providence, fretful and 
peevish under the accumulation of what we call 
human ills. And then it is that with a great show 
of piety we utter the sentiment, " Oh that I had 
wings like a dove ! for then would I fly away, and 
be at rest.^^ 

But it is true that sometimes the pious soul does 
sigh for the peace and the rest of heaven. Even 
Paul said, '' I have a desire to depart and to be 
with Christ, which is far better.'^ And we, too, may 
have the same earnest longings when we sit down 
and contrast the pain and the sorrow of this world 
with the holy rest and joy of that which is to 
come. 

When we think of our sins and our sorrows, of 
our griefs and our partings ; when we think of our 
relapses into sin, and our bitter repentings ; when we 
think of our misfortunes and miseries, our prone- 



42 THE SHADOW OF THE ROCK. 

ness to go astray, and the anguish tliat must fol- 
low, — it is not hard to sigh for that sweet home 
where we shall dwell with God and the holy for 
evermore. ^^ There the wicked cease from trou- 
bling, and there the weary be at rest.'^ "They 
shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; 
neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. 
For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne 
shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living 
fountains of waters : and God shall wipe away all 
tears from their eyes.'' When we think of these 
things, and picture to* a pure and chastened fancy 
this future home of all the saints, it is easy to yearn 
for its holy joys, and long to mingle in the blessed 
company that clusters around the throne. 

" I want to put on ray attire, 

Washed white in the blood of the Lamb ; 
I want to be one of your choir, 

And tune my sweet harp to his name ; 
I want — oh, I want to be there, 

Where sorrow and sin bid adieu, 
Your joy and your friendship to share, 

To wonder and worship with you." 

These are but the holiest breathings of a pious 
soul. They are but the gracious yearnings of a 
soul which pants for God as the hart panteth after 



THE SHADOW OF THE ROCK. 43 

the water-brooks, and which longs to be filled with 
the fullness of God. And such a soul can say, " I 
shall be satisfied when I awake with thy likeness/^ 
and it never will be, never can be, until then. But 
meantime our Lord Jesus stands as " the shadow of 
a great rock in a weary land,^^ and to us all he says, 
*^ Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy 
laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke 
upon you, and learn of me ; for I am meek and 
lowly in heart; and ye shall find rest unto your 
souls.^^ 



PART III. 

A MODEL CHRISTIAN FAMILY. 



A MODEL CHRISTIAN FAMILY. 



"And they were both righteous before God, walking in all 
the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless." — 
Luke i. 6. 

rriHIS sounds as if it might be a description of 
-^ Adam and Eve before the fall. It surely is 
very high commendation for an ordinary husband 
and wife, and shows a degree of sanctity that is not 
often attained. But the parties were not Adam and 
Eve, and the place was not that beautiful garden 
where, in primitive simplicity and innocence, they 
had found a home. It was an aged couple who had 
served God in the temple for many years- — Zacharias 
and Elisabeth — and the state of heart described was 
the result of the grace of God, working in ordinary 
human souls. 

" And they were both righteous before God " — 
the husband, as well as the wife — ^^ walking in all 
the commandments and ordinances of the Lord 
blameless.^^ They were just such a couple as we 
sometimes see at the present day — what Payson 

47 



48 A MODEL CHRISTIAN FAMILY. 

called " a blameless pair/^ united in marriage by the 
ordinance of God^ and united in heart and soul by 
that wondrous and amazing grace which is even 
stronger and purer than mere human love. 

I. The characters here presented. 

As far as outward appearances were concerned, 
there may not have been anything very striking 
about them. They were " well stricken in years/^ 
and at this time were childless, but they were to be 
the parents of John the Baptist. Zacharias was a 
priest, and as such took his course in serving in the 
temple. Elisabeth, in the mean time, attended to 
her domestic duties, and in her quiet sphere served 
God and '' waited for the consolation of Israel.^^ 
But they were both " righteous before God,'^ and 
this not naturally, for they were both descendants 
of Adam, and heirs to the common ruin that had 
come to all the race. 

But, in the mean time, grace had come into their 
hearts, and even before the birth of Jesus, the son 
of Elisabeth's cousin, Mary, this grace had changed 
the hearts of both husband and wife. Their own 
son, not yet born, was to point to this son of Mary 
and say, '^ Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh 
away the sins of the world.'' But, by the grace of 
God, that ^^Lamb had been slain from the founda- 



A MODEL CHRISTIAN FAMILY. 49 

tion of the world/^ and so the blood to be shed on 
the cross had power in advance to blot out these 
sins, and "the Lord^^ became "their righteous- 
ness'^ before he was born. 

A planter or a farmer will sometimes give " a 
lien '^ or " a mortgage '^ on a crop of cotton or corn 
that is yet to be grow^n. God was so sure that his 
own Son would do all that he had contracted to do 
in the " covenant of grace '^ that he was not afraid 
to advance the grace that was needed to redeem 
these souls, even before Christ was born a man. 
And it is in this way we are to account for the sav- 
ing of all God's saints who came before the birth 
of Christ. 

And they were both " righteous before God;" i. e. 
in the sight not merely of men but of God they 
were righteous. We can deceive our fellow-men 
and can deceive ourselves, but this husband and 
wife w^ere both righteous in the sight of God. They 
had the approval of that great Being who " sees the 
heart/' who can read all the secret emotions and. 
intentions that move and actuate the heart. This 
implies a change of heart, a supernatural change 
of their whole moral character, a radical, spiritual 
change in the very constitution of their being. It 
implies that they were not merely loving and faith- 



50 A MODEL CHRISTIAN FAMILY, 

ful to their marriage vows, but that they both kept 
their vows toward God. They were " born again/^ 
and with a new spiritual life in the heart they were 
now trying to serve God in fidelity. They looked 
upon themselves as God's creatures, and, as such, felt 
that his eye was upon them at all times and under 
all circumstances. They knew that this life was 
not all, and that the happiest human homes would 
soon be broken up, while that which was spiritual 
was immortal and eternal. As husband and wife 
they loved each other, and as they were old and 
well stricken in years, it is to be hoped and pre- 
sumed that the golden link which had bound them 
so long was brighter and stronger because of the 
common experience of these many years. The ef- 
fervescence of youth had vanished, but "a love 
stronger than death'' had only bound them more 
closely after so many years of married life. There 
is something very touching in the sight of an aged 
couple, who have climbed life's hill together, walk- 
ing hand in hand down the western slope, w^here 
the setting sun still gilds the frosted head with its 
soft and mellow rays. 

But regarding this aged couple, as we sometimes 
see even now, there was something sweeter and 
more precious still. Of them, as of David and Jon- 



A MODEL CHRISTIAN FAMILY, 51 

athan, it might be said, ^^They were lovely and 
pleasant in their lives, and in their death they were 
not divided/^ They were both righteous before 
God, redeemed by the same blood, changed by the 
same grace, cheered by the same hope, children of 
the same Father, the same heavenly sunshine of 
God's smile upon the whole household. The man 
was nothing but a priest, and had but little of this 
world's goods to make him what the world calls 
happy, but, like Goldsmith's village pastor, 

" He was passing rich on forty pounds a year." 

There was in his heart, and in the heart of his pious 
wife, a mine of wealth richer than all the gold- 
mines of this world combined. They were rich in 
faith, rich in all the promises of God, rich in the 
hope of a coming Saviour, rich in favor with God 
and man. 

II. We have here an inspired statement of the 
eflfect of this state of heart, "And they were both 
righteous before God, walking in all the command- 
ments and ordinances of the Lord blameless.'^ 
Commenting on this, Dr. Payson says: "To be 
righteous is to be conformed to the rule of right ; 
and the only rule of right is the will of God as 
expressed in his commandments and ordinances.'^ 



52 A MODEL CHRISTIAN FAMILY. 

These are not the same. The commands of God 
are his moral precepts ; and by his ordinances are 
meant those religious rites and institutions he has 
directed us to observe. Repent, believe the gospel, 
be holy, are commands. Keligious worship, bap- 
tism and the Lord^s Supper are ordinances. He 
that is righteous before God will observe both. In 
this respect many fail. Some pretend to obey God^s 
commands, while they neglect his ordinances. 
Others visibly observe his ordinances, but neglect 
his commands. The truly righteous esteem all 
God^s precepts concerning all things to be right, 
and observe them not on occasions only, when it 
suits their convenience, but habitually. This was 
the case with these parents of John the Baptist. 
"As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord,^^ 
was a sacred compact made by Zacharias ; and in 
that compact Elisabeth was as deeply in earnest as 
was her husband. And so in the sight of God they 
were righteous, and in the sight of men they were 
blameless. 

But what is It to walk in all the commandments 
and ordinances of the Lord blameless ? 

It is to regulate our whole conduct, at home and 
in all our business relations, by the precepts of the 
Bible. If there is any other rule by which we are 



A MODEL CHRISTIAN FAMILY, 53 

to regulate and govern our lives, I do not know 
what it is. There are some who seem to take all 
their ideas of life from what others believe and 
practice. There are some who seem to emulate the 
example of others, and their idea is to make home 
happy after a worldly sort. Their idea seems to 
be that religion and the service of God are irksome 
duties that have to be performed, but that worldly 
amusements are the only sources of real happiness. 
And so, while the family is called a Christian fam- 
ily, and we are apt to find a family Bible in the 
parlor, that is about all there is in the home to 
distinguish it from the most godless household in 
all the community. There is no blessing asked at 
the table. • There is no daily reading of the Bible. 
There is no family worship. There are music and 
dancing and card-playing — all the things that a 
Christian can borrow from the devil to make 
home " attractive.^^ 

And such a home is attractive in the same sense 
that a gambling-saloon is attractive to a man who 
wants to gain money without honest work. But 
surely such a home is not a Christian home ; not 
like the home at Bethany where our Saviour loved 
to rest himself when weary. It is not a place 
where he loves to dwell, nor is it a place where 



54 A MODEL CHRISTIAN FAMILY. 

the family loves to know that he comes as a fre- 
quent guest. 

I have sometimes found, in pastoral visitation, a 
pack of cards lying on the same table with a fam- 
ily Bible. And in such cases it is not hard to tell 
which of the two takes up the most time or claims 
the most study and attention on the part of that 
family. And if such a family did not know it 
was wrong, why was there that sense of shame at 
the presence of the pastor ? 

Would John the Baptist have been the man he 
was had his childhood and youth been passed in 
such a home ? Were wine-drinking and merriment 
main ingredients in the home life of the blameless 
pair ? No. There is not a turn in the text that 
does not, in the conscience of every Christian, pre- 
vent even the suggestion of such a parody on a 
Christian home. And yet these are the parties 
held up to us as examples of what we all ought 
to become as Christian parents. 

God's word is the infallible guide for our con- 
duct ; the study of that word should be our daily 
delight, and there should be an honest effort on our 
part to Avalk daily in the way marked out in that 
word as the only way to heaven. There should be 
daily repentance of sin, daily faith in Christ as a 



A MODEL CHRISTIAN FAMILY, 55 

personal Saviour, and daily obedience to God in 
all that he commands us to do for his glory, 
as well as for our own highest happiness and 
good. 

There are many such homes, and they are sweet 
and pleasant resorts for a Christian soul. They 
are modeled on the home at Bethany, and it seems 
to me that our Saviour must love to be an inmate 
of such a home. Not that he needs such a home 
now, but he himself is the light and the life of 
such a home. It is his own blessed presence that 
fills that home with joy and gladness, and that 
makes it somewhat a foretaste of another home 
which he has gone to prepare. It is not perfect, 
for nothing that is earthly is perfect. But as far 
as human nature can be made perfect in this world 
the inmates are perfect, and as far as human hap- 
piness can be complete, it is so in such a Christian 
home. 

But when we want to find out the cause of this 
we have to look down below the surface ; for the 
real cause is down in the hearts of those who do 
love the Lord and are trying to serve him. In 
other words, it is due to those who are righteous 
before God and walking in all the commandments 
and ordinances of the Lord blameless. 



56 A MODEL CHRISTIAN FAMILY. 

As a matter of course, the world does not look 
upon it in that light, and such a home would be a 
dreary place to those who had such worldly tastes. 
But around such a home the angels of God are 
hovering, and the spirit of God is a constant in- 
mate. It may be but a plain and modest cottage, 
wanting in many of the comforts and luxuries com- 
mon to other dwellings ; but God is there, the Bible 
is there, religion is there, the love of Christ is 
there, contentment and peace are there. And when 
shadows fall, as sooner or later they are sure to fall 
on all our homes, there will be light, divine light, 
that will shine in the midst of the shadows, and 
there will rest upon that home '' the blessing of the 
Lord which maketh rich and addeth no sorrow.^^ 

And now the point is just this ; the piety of the 
parents is what makes that a typical home. Their 
will, subordinate to God's will, must be the ruling 
power in such a home. Their godly influence and 
example must be felt upon all the members of such 
a family. Their wish must be law, enforced in the 
name of God and by God's authority upon that 
whole family. And when this is the case the efifect 
will be seen and felt among all the inmates of the 
family. 

I know there is a disposition in these days to let 



A MODEL CHRISTIAN FAMILY. 57 

children rule the family, and there is a restlessness 
on the part of the young at not being allowed to 
have their own way and even to upset and over- 
turn all the old rules and laws that w^ere once 
looked upon as essential to family government. 
This is called an age of progress, of upheaval, of 
revolution. But not all change is improvement; 
and the setting aside of the laws and ordinances 
of God never has been and never can be an im- 
provement on what God has ordered. ^^To the 
law and to the testimony ^^ we must appeal if we 
want to be right and want to do right as God's 
children. 

And, what is more, there must be hearty agree- 
ment between husband and wife in the manage- 
ment of the house. " How can two walk together 
except they be agreed ?'' There must be unity of 
mind and heart in such a home, or else there must 
be endless confusion, resulting in a kind of pande- 
monium. The husband and wife ought both to 
be Christians — earnest, devoted Christians. But if 
one is not, then the one who is ought, in the name 
of our Master and for the good of all, to be allowed 
to give a Christian impress to that family. It 
tramples on no rights of a godless man for a Chris- 
tian wife to " bring up her children in the nurture 



58 A MODEL CHRISTIAN FAMILY. 

and admonition of the Lord/' But it does trample 
on her rights, and trample on her conscience, and 
trample on her heart, for a loving but godless hus- 
band to rub out from the hearts of their children 
what she would impress there in the name of her 
Saviour. He has no conscience in the matter, but 
she has. With him there are no principles in- 
volved, but with her the deepest feelings and con- 
victions of her heart are enlisted. 

How far a wife can go, and ought to go, in such 
a case it is hard to tell. Such divisions in a family- 
are to be deplored — most seriously deplored ; still, 
God demands, and has a right to demand, implicit 
obedience to all his laws. 

And now, what an appeal comes to the hearts of 
an ungodly husband and wife when they begin to 
think of these immortal souls committed to their 
charge ! Zacharias and Elisabeth were not aware, 
at the time, of what God had in store for them. 
But the forerunner of our Saviour, John the Bap- 
tist, was to be trained up by them in that quiet 
home at Hebron. And God, by his grace, had 
been training them for that great mission. It was 
to this end, as well as for their own good, that God 
had given them that rectitude of heart and life in 
which they were walking as a blameless pair. They 



A MODEL CHRISTIAN FAMILY. 59 

were to impress on that young mind and heart ^^ the 
beanty of holiness/^ They were to educate him 
in all the elements of divine knowledge and piety. 
They were to train him, by example as well as by 
precept, in all the commandments and ordinances 
of the Lord. It was from them that John was to 
learn his first lessons in youthful piety, and from 
their hands he was to receive that careful and godly 
tuition which would leave the deepest impress on 
his soul. 

But now let me ask you, Have you any concep- 
tion of what future men or women may be growing 
up around your hearthstone? There are times 
when, as a father or a mother, you are forced to 
think of such things. These children are growing 
so fast that before you are aware of it they will be 
men and women. The formative period of their 
lives, it may be, is already past, and there is a 
type of character which you have unconsciously 
impressed on them. Whether you wanted to or 
not, your own views and opinions and modes of 
thought — and, above all, your religious or irrelig- 
ious character — have already been impressed on 
them. Our children are very apt to do as we do, 
and not as we tell them to do. Long after a father 
and mother are dead we can see their characters and 



60 A MODEL CHRISTIAN FAMILY, 

modes of life reproduced in their children. The 
home influence which we have imbibed is apt to 
show itself in our own families^ and from us to be 
handed down again to those who come after us. 
This is one way in which '' God visits the iniquity 
of the fathers upon the children unto the third and 
fourth generation of them that hate him.'^ And 
this is also the way in which he '^ showeth mercy 
unto thousands of them that love him and keep 
his commandments.^' "No man liveth to him- 
self/' and if this be so, surely no father and no 
mother can be so devoid of all influence as to 
make no impression and leave no impression on 
the plastic characters of those who in childhood 
are committed to their care and placed directly 
under their parental authority. 

Eli was a good man, but " his sons made them- 
selves vile, and he restrained them not/' and they 
all perished. Zacharias and Elisabeth were " both 
righteous before God, walking in all the command- 
ments and ordinances of the Lord blameless," and 
"among all the sons of men," said our Saviour, 
" there was not a greater than John the Baptist." 

III. By way of affliction. 

Let me exhort all my readers to lay to heart 
this solemn subject. None of us doubt, or can 



A MODEL CHRISTIAN FAMILY. fil 

doubt, that home influence is the strongest influ- 
ence that can be exerted in this world. It is con- 
stant in its daily effect upon children at an age 
when they are most easily and most indelibly im- 
pressed. It comes from those who are naturally 
and rightly looked upon as bound by their duty to 
God to impress what is good and holy upon their 
plastic characters. To them we are an embodiment 
of right thinking and right acting, and up to an 
age when they can judge for themselves we are a 
standard of right both in theory and practice. 
And even when old enough to think for them- 
selves, \vhat we have taught them by our own ex- 
ample will have a tremendous influence upon them. 
And now I ask you. Are you, as husband and 
wife, a blameless pair? Are you both ^^ righteous 
before God '^ ? Have you both found ^^ peace with 
God through our Lord Jesus Christ ^' ? Are you 
both bound together by the strong tie of a com- 
mon faith, ^^a like precious faith ^^ in him who 
came as the ^^ Light of the world ^^ and the ^' Light 
of home ^^? Are you partakers of a common grace, 
and sharers in a common hope, and partners in a 
common service? In one sense yokefellows, are 
you pulling together in the same narrow way that 
leads to heaven? Together responsible for these 



62 A MODEL CHRISTIAN FAMILY. 

children^ are you helping each other so to train 
them that they will scatter roses along your path, 
instead of planting thorns in your pillow when 
you are old and gray-headed? 

Is yours a divided house, or one where perfect 
unity of mind and heart, of will and purpose, of 
hope and desire, give a combined sanction to all 
that God demands in the way of duty and service? 
Are you both righteous, or is there a diversity of 
mind and heart on this vital subject of eternal and 
unspeakable importance ? 

Ah ! there are some sad hearts when I ask these 
questions. It is a painful fact that there are many 
such divided households, and if the Lord were sud- 
denly to come, ^' the one would be taken and the 
other left/^ " The great gulf ^^ is already there ; it 
may be not yet ^^fixed,^' but it is there between 
these souls bound together by the purest, strong- 
est, tenderest of all human ties ; and under God 
it is for you to say whether that gulf shall be fixed 
as an impassable gulf for ever. 

When Naomi was about to part with Orpah and 
Euth they both lifted up their voices and wept. 
Orpah went back unto her people and unto her 
gods, but Ruth said, " Entreat me not to leave 
thee, or to return from following after thee, for 



A MODEL CHRISTIAN FAMILY. 63 

whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou 
lodgest, I will lodge ; thy people shall be my people, 
and thy God, my God ; where thou diest, I will 
die, and there will I be buried ; the Lord do so to 
me, and more also, if aught but death part you and 
me/^ Let that be the earnest purpose and resolu- 
tion of every unconverted husband toward his 
wife, and after death does part, as part it will 
and must, there will be a family reunion that shall 
never be broken any more. And may God grant 
it, for Jesus' sake. Amen. 



PART IV. 

A WORD TO THE WEARY. 



A WORD TO THE WEARY. 



INTEODUCTION. 

rriHE wise man has said, " A man hath joy by 
the answer of his mouth : and a word spoken 
in due season, how good is it T^ There are none of 
us, young or old, who cannot testify to that truth 
from our own experience. There have been times 
in our checkered lives when human friends have 
had the good sense and the love to speak to us the 
wordy the one word, the very word that was needed 
at that very moment. 

In old times pieces of metal or ivory or wood 
were shaped like coins and made to represent cer- 
tain sums of money. These were called '^ counters," 
and took the place of what we now call checks, 
bank-notes or bonds. This gave rise to that shrewd 
remark of some writer, " Words are the counters of 
wise men and the money of foolsJ^ 

The same word used by one man will have a 
different meaning from what it has when flippantly 

* 67 



68 A WORD TO THE WEARY. 

spoken by another. Let a number of children be 
playing around their mother^ and a hundred times 
a day they will come to her and ask, ^^ Mother, may 
I do this or that?^' It is such a constant thing that 
the poor, jaded woman scarcely knows, half the 
time, what the question is, and answers mechan- 
ically, " Yes " or " No/^ But let the father come 
in from his office or his counting-room, and he can- 
not help weighing the meaning of the question. 
His "yes" or "no^^ must mean something, for in 
his daily transactions hundreds and thousands of 
dollars often depend on his answer to questions. 

A quarter of a cent is a very small sum, but a 
quarter of a cent, where a thousand bales of cotton 
are for sale, means a vast amount of money. And 
so, with constant fluctuations in the market, the one 
word " buy" or " sell " sent over the wire means the 
change of hands for hundreds or even thousands of 
dollars. 

In the social sphere also those short words "yes " 
and "no" have been '^ counters/^ that no actual 
amount of money can properly represent. Those 
of us who have been married long enough can ap- 
preciate, to some extent, what was meant away back 
in that dim and misty past that seems so long ago. 
But the young people of to-day who thoughtlessly 



INTR OD UCTIOK 69 

use or recant the " yes '^ or the ^^ no ^^ do not, for 
they cannot realize what a world of joy or woe de- 
pends on that one breath. A whole lifetime of un- 
alloyed happiness or misery must depend on that 
word, that one word, which will break or bind two 
human hearts or human lives. 

^^ A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in 
pictures of silver.^^ Knowing this, our Lord Jesus 
has said, through Isaiah, ^^The Lord God hath 
given me the tongue of the learned, that I should 
know how to speak a word in season to him that is 
weary .^^ It requires " the tongue of the learned '^ 
for such a delicate work. Many a heart is grieved 
and almost broken by words that are spoken with- 
out due consideration. Many a word is spoken 
whose sting was not intended and whose meaning was 
not understood at the time. Apart from rash, hasty, 
angry, intemperate w^ords, there are cases where 
even simple words are twisted out of shape and 
made to carry along with them a sting that the 
speaker never designed. They are perverted by a 
bad heart or, it may be, by a want of tact and pru- 
dence in the knowledge of words. 

But our Lord Jesus had ^Hhe tongue of the 
learned.^^ He knew what word to use at the proper 
time, and how to use it for a specific purpose. 



70 A WOBD TO THE WEABY. 

Taken as a svhole^ for terseness of style and for 
simplicity of meaning there is no book in the world 
that compares with the Bible. And among all the 
parts of this book, there are none that have more 
" words in season to him that is weary '^ than those 
parts which give us the acts and the words of our 
blessed Lord and Master. And as we look at 
some of these while sitting at his feet, let us bear in 
mind that they were spoken for us, as well as for 
those who heard them from his human lips. And 
our own hearts will endorse the sentiment, " Never 
man spake like this man." 



CHAPTER I. 

AN ANTIDOTE FOE WOERY. 

QUCH must have been the wonderful words of 
^^ our Lord Jesus that everything he ever spoke 
was worthy of being handed down to all the ages. 
We all know how the words of wise men are treas- 
ured as something worthy of universal admiration. 
The wit of Sydney Smith and the glittering plays 
of Shakespeare are held up to the gaze of all who 
love the English language. 

But here was a man who, as a public man, 
was known among his fellows for less than three 
years. The life of the man, as we have it recorded, 
when printed and bound can be bought for a 
dime and put in the vest-pocket. The whole of it 
could be printed in a tract, and is not as large a^ 
many an essay. But what a book ! What a man 
it tells about, and " what wondrous words of grace 
he spoke !^^ The Gospel by Matthew, the Gospel by 
Mark, the Gospel by Luke, the Gospel by John,-r- 
take any one of them, or all together, and we have 

the birth, life, miracjes, words, sufferings, death, 

71 



72 A WORD TO THE WEARY. 

resurrection, ascension, of a man compressed into 
the shortest space — of a man who was worthy of 
the pen of the Holy Ghost, the third person of the 
adorable Trinity ! Never was there, in all the ages, 
such another man as this ; and the little we have of 
his life and words has furnished a theme for more 
books, and more writings of every sort, than all 
other lives that were ever lived on earth put to- 
gether. The fact is, the evangelists spoke as they 
were moved by the Holy Ghost, and what they se- 
lected in the way of words and deeds were the warp 
and woof of that wondrous story, more wild and 
varied than a poet's dream, and more blessed in its 
results than all other records of human history. 

Let us listen again to some of those " words to 
the weary'' that fell at times from his gracious lips. 

There are people in the world who are always 
troubled about pecuniary affairs. Not that they are 
in want, but they seem to be afraid that they or 
their children will be. 

" Man wants but little here below, 
Nor wants that little long." 

That maxim is false in fact, and what the author 
should have said was, 

" Man needs but little here below, 
Nor neecfe that little long." 



AN ANTIDOTE FOB WOBBY. 73 

The trouble is that men are not content with what 
things they have^ but are always wanting or wish- 
ing for what they have not and what they ought 
not to have. Our Lord was not bemoaning his own 
poverty when he compressed it all in a nutshell and 
said, " The foxes have holes, and the birds of the 
air have nests, but the Son of Man hath not where 
to lay his head/^ No, this was not a sigh of dis- 
content, but it was to rebuke those who would fol- 
low him not on principle, but for ^^ the loaves and 
fishes/^ 

In his ^^ Sermon on the Mount ^^ Jesus had a cer- 
tain class of people in his mind. The sermon was 
preached to a small audience, but he knew it would 
be reported, not by a stenographer, but by one who 
could carry every word in his memory and dictate 
to the human scribes just what he wanted to say to 
all the ages. He knew that all the readers of the 
Bible that ever lived would read that sermon. And 
so he was preaching that day to an audience larger 
than could have gathered on every foot of ground 
in Palestine. And hence we are to look upon his 
words not as confined to these favored and faithful 
few, but as the words of a prime minister, which 
are read around the whole world. 

There are many people who are constantly wor- 



74 A WORD TO THE WEARY, 

ried with these questions, ^' What shall we eat?*^ 
or, "What shall we drink ?'^ or, "Wherewithal 
shall we be clothed?^' The Lord knew that, and 
he knew the basis of that over-anxious care about 
these things that are "to perish with the using/^ 
He had been cutting at the root of such a spirit 
just before. " Lay not up for yourselves treasures 
upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and 
where thieves break through and steal : but lay up 
for yourselves treasures in heaven, . where neither 
moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do 
not break through nor steal : for where your 
treasure is, there will your heart be also/^ There 
was the seat of the trouble — not a prudent fore- 
thought, but covetousness, greed of gain, "mak- 
ing haste to be rich f not an actual fear of naked- 
ness or starvation, but an unconscious hankering^ 
as the old writers called it — hankering after the 
glittering but perishable riches of the earth. It 
was to rebuke that spirit and to show just where it 
led that he spoke this " word in season.^^ 

And he knew not only where it came from, but 
also whither it led. Insensibly such a man comes 
to the choice of a master, for really none of us are 
free, absolutely free. 

"One is your master, even Christ,'' may be said 



AN ANTIDOTE FOE WORRY, 75 

of some. ^^ One is your master, even Satan/^ may- 
be said of others. " His servants we are whom we 
obey f^ and all of us are serving some master, 
whether we know it and intend it or not. 

But " No man can serve two masters ; for either 
lie will hate the one, and love the other ; or else he 
will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye can- 
not serve God and mammon.^^ Confronted with 
this fact, which every man, rich or poor, knows to 
be a fact, the question comes up, ^' How am I to 
make a living for myself and family?'^ Oh, is 
that the question, the whole of it ? Merely a liv- 
ing, a comfortable support ? You may search the 
Bible through, and that is about all that God prom- 
ises for this world. Elijah was to have food brought 
to him by the ravens, and he could find water 
enough in the brook. The widow's meal-barrel and 
her oil-cruse were not to get empty, but the Lord 
never promised that she should have miraculous 
meal and oil to sell, and so get rich while her poor 
neighbors were starving. But she did have enough 
for herself and for the man of God while he was 
serving the Lord. 

There is just where people — and good people — 
make mistakes in the critical contrast between Laz- 
arus, in rags and wretchedness, and the rich man in 



76 A WOBD TO THE WEARY. 

purple and fine linen, who fared sumptuously every- 
day. They forget that the rich man was having 
his "good things in this life/^ w^hile Lazarus could 
afford to wait for his until the next. 

Knowing all this, the Lord says, "Therefore,'^ 
that is, because, " ye cannot serve God and mam- 
mon.^^ "Take no thought for your life,'^ your 
merely human, temporal life — what you shall eat, 
drink or wear. " Ls not the life more than meat, 
and the body than raiment V^ Is there not, within 
this frail tenement which the winds can shake, 
and the cold pinch, and hunger starve, a some- 
thing which no raiment can clothe and which no 
bread can feed ? Is there not a something here 
which, in spite of all the purple and fine linen and 
all the sumptuous fare of kings, may perish in 
hunger and nakedness? 

" Behold the fowls of the air : for they sow not, 
neither do they reap, nor gather into barns ; yet 
your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not 
much better than they? Which of you by tak- 
ing thought can add one cubit unto his stature ?" 

All the food in the world beyond a certain neces- 
sary amount will be a waste of raw material. No 
matter how rich and dainty and sumptuous the fare, 
it will not make a man grow beyond his allotted 



AN ANTIDOTE FOB WORRY, 77 

stature. It will not add one cubit to his height, 
No^ it may add to his vanity and self-conceit and 
personal pride to know that he can spread a feast 
that is worthy of a king, but *4t cannot add one 
cubit to his stature/' 

"And why take ye thought for raiment? Con- 
sider the lilies of the field, how they grow ; they toil 
not, neither do they spin : and yet I say unto you, 
that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed 
like one of these." They grow, simply grow. And 
they are so beautiful that the highest ambition of an 
artist is not to make a lily or to surpass one, but to 
imitate one. And the more perfect the imitation, 
the higher the art and the more famous the artist. 

But, after all, the lily is but grass, and soon fades 
and withers and loses all its fragrance and beauty. 
" Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, 
which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the 
oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of 
little faith ?'' Not in purple and fine linen, not in 
silks and velvets, but in raiment adapted to your 
station in society. That is all that any of us should 
want, for surely it is all that any of us can need. 
" Therefore take no thought, saying, what shall we 
eat? or, what shall we drink? or, wherewithal shall 
we be clothed ?'' Why? "For your heavenly 



78 A WORD TO THE WEABY. 

Father knoweth that ye have need of all these 
things/^ What then? ^^But seek ye first the 
kingdom of God, and his righteousness ; and all 
these things shall be added unto you/^ Oh, what a 
blessed assurance that is to those who are sometimes 
filled with anxiety about even their daily bread ! 
It is hard, very hard, to put in practice these plain 
lessons of the word. But the Lord has made good 
that promise so it has never failed. And there are 
times when we can take hold of the promise and 
sing: 

"Set free from present sorrow, 
We cheerfully can say, 
Let the unknown to-morrow 
Bring with it what it may. 

"It can bring with it nothing 
But he will bear us through; 
Who gives the lilies clothing 
Will clothe his people too. 

"Beneath the spreading heavens 
No creature but is fed; 
And he who feeds the ravens 
Will give his children bread." 



CHAPTER 11. 

MISTS CLEAKED AWAY. 

f\F our Lord Jesus it was said^ even by those 
^^ who rejected him, "Never man spake like this 
man.'^ That must have beeu true in more senses 
than one. "He knew what was in man/' and, 
hence, what man wanted. He knew just how to 
adapt his words to all classes and conditions of 
men. There was a sense in which "the child 
Jesus'' grew in stature and in understanding. Not 
only his body but his mind grew from a chikl's 
mind to a man's mind. And while he could ask 
and answer questions with the rabbis when but 
twelve years old, there came a time when the wisest 
among them were afraid to meet him in debate. 

But while he was wise enough to grapple with 
the deepest dogmas of religion, " the common people 
heard him gladly." He was always God, but as a 
man he was wise enough to speak to his fellow-men 
in such a way that the unlettered could understand 
and appreciate what he said. Knowing men — all 
men, the wise as well as the unwise — he did not 

79 



80 A WORD TO THE WEARY. 

speak to all alike, but he knew just how to adapt 
his words to each case. He would not cast pearls 
before swine, but he spoke words in season, al- 
ways in season, ^' to them that were weary/' 

Bearing in mind, then, that all these words were 
for us, as well as for those to whom he first spoke 
them, let us study them and apply them to our 
own hearts, 

" There was a man of the Pharisees named Nico- 
demus, a ruler of the Jews ; the same came to Jesus 
by night/' Why he came at night we cannot tell, 
nor does it matter. He came to talk with this won- 
derful man about his soul. He had faith enough to 
believe that Jesus was " a teacher sent of God.'' No 
man could do the works that he did unless God 
were with him. He was honest, candid, sincere in 
his talk with the Master. His aim was not to en- 
tangle him in his talk, as many tried to do. But 
had he spoken what was in his heart, he would 
have said, ^^ Lord, what must I do to be saved ?" 
That was the unuttered question that was burning 
and bursting in his heart. 

Jesus knew this just as well as he would have 
done had the man asked him in so many words. 
And so, to draw him out and to deepen the con- 
viction that was already there, "Jesus answered 



MISTS CLEARED AWAY, 81 

and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, 
except a man be born again, he cannot see the king- 
dom of God.'^ That was ^^ a word in season^' to one 
who was ^^ weary/' 

It was not understood at the time. Yet it took 
Nicodemus out of his old ruts and led him into a new 
realm of thought and feeling. ^^ Born again.'' Born 
again ! Why, he had never heard of such a thing 
as that ! It was impracticable. It was impossible 
in the very nature of things. ^^ How can a man be 
born when he is old ?" That was a most natural 
question. There are men to-day who have read 
these words a thousand times, but who ask this same 
question. They know what the Lord meant, while 
Nicodemus did not. But somehow they think as 
he did — that if a man lives up to his light, does the 
best he can, pays his honest debts, acts uprightly 
and does all he can to help the poor and needy he 
will reach heaven at last. 

They think of man with man ; not of man with 
God, not of man as a creature of God and a sinner 
against God, but man as connected with and identi- 
fied with his fellow-man. This is what stands fore- 
most when they think about religion. But the Lord 
knew that all that would come in as the result of 
^'a change of heart," and that when men are 



82 A WORD TO THE WEARY, 

brought into union and communion with God, the 
relation of men to men would adjust itself and all 
would come right in the course of time. 

The first thing, then, was to get the heart right, 
to put in a new mainspring. '' Out of the heart are. 
the issues of life,^^ and this man's heart, as every 
other natural heart, was '^ not right in the sight of 
God.'' It is the heart, the soul, the moral nature, 
that makes the man. Not the body, not the mind, 
but the soul, that spiritual nature which can never 
die. 

^^ That which is born of the flesh, is flesh ; and 
that which is born of the Spirit, is spirit." Yet to 
the mystified mind of Nicodemus these words were 
still not understood. Mindful of this, Jesus would 
point him away from all physical forces and all 
natural agencies, and hence he says, " Marvel not 
that I said unto thee. Ye must be born again.'' 
I did say it, and do say it again, strange and 
paradoxical as it may seem to you. 

But " marvel not." Take it on faith ; not as 
something to be understood, but as something to be 
believed. It is strange. It is mysterious. It is 
something you cannot understand. And so are 
other things too. "The wind bloweth where it 
listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst 



MISTS CLEARED AWAY. 83 

not tell whence it conieth and whither it goeth ; so 
is every one that is born of the spirit/^ 

And now let ns stop a while and think on that 
" word in season to a weary soul/^ That subject, 
" the new birth/^ or what we call '' a change of 
heart/^ has always been dark and mysterious. 
There are honest men who cannot take it in. They 
feel the need of a power stronger than they are — an 
outside, spiritual, supernatural power. But they 
want to know, with Nicodemus, "How can these 
things be f^ We cannot, and Christ did not choose 
to answer the question. But he did try to bring it 
down to the faith of this learned man, who had to 
become as a little child before he could get heavenly 
wisdom. 

There is the wind. How do I know it ? I can- 
not see it, cannot tell where it comes from nor 
where it is going. But I know it because I hear 
it and feel it, and, above all, because I see its won- 
drous effects. The kite rises; the ship sails; the 
waves of the ocean dash in huge breakers upon the 
beach. The trees of the forest are twisted like 
weeds by the cyclone, and the sands of the desert 
are piled up like snowdrifts before the furious and 
deadly sirocco. 

It is strange that air, the subtlest of all fluids, can 



84 A WORD TO THE WEARY. 

have such power — such amazing, wonderful, almost 
miraculous power. That air — thin, transparent air, 
so light that the wings of a moth can move it — can 
become a force, a physical force, that can blow 
down the largest trees and rock the largest ship 
like an infant's cradle. 

But if this be true — and we know it is true — 
why wonder that a spiritual agent whom we call 
the Holy Ghost has power to change, to renew, to 
transform, to regenerate these human souls ? One 
is no stranger than the other, nor is it harder to 
believe, nor is it more apparent to the true judg- 
ment of men. For, say what we please, there are 
cases of what are called conversion, or more prop- 
erly regeneration, that are more wonderful displays 
of power— an unseen, subtle, spiritual power — than 
is the track of a cyclone an evidence of the power 
of the wind. 

Whence, then, comes this strange, spiritual, su- 
pernatural power ? " And as Moses lifted up the 
serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of 
man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in him 
should not perish, but have eternal life.'^ 

He was still in the region of mystery, but that 
old type of the brazen serpent was familiar to the 
mind of Mcodemus. How a look, a mere look, a 



MISTS CLEARED AWAY, 85 

simple look at that brazen serpent, could take away 
the sting, and act as an antidote to the deadly- 
poison, no human being has ever been able to 
tell. 

But Nicodemus knew, and they all knew, that 
such had been the case. And so now it should be 
the case that a look, a look of true, earnest, living 
faith at the crucified One, should cause a new life- 
current to spring up in the soul. Somehow, in the 
mystery of God^s adorable grace, there was in that 
" crucified One ^^ a fountain of life from which the 
sinner who felt the sting of sin could find relief 
from the pain, and life from the dead. 

"There is life for a look at the crucified One, 
There is life at this moment for thee; 
Then look, sinner, look unto him and be saved — 
Unto him who was nailed to the tree." 

"Oh, why was he there as the bearer of sin, 
If on Jesus thy guilt was not laid? 
Oh, why from his side flowed the sin-cleansing blood. 
If his dying the debt has not paid?" 



CHAPTER III. 

NOT SOUGHT, BUT FOUND. 

TN" striking contrast with the case of Nicodemus 
^ there is another story, which we all love to read 
over and over again. It is the incident of the wo- 
man at Jacob's well. The Lord himself was weary- 
hungry and thirsty, but he was never too tired to 
" speak a word in season to one that was weary .^^ 

But this interview has always seemed to be one 
of the most touching scenes in our Lord's earthly 
life. It was such a wondrous display of human sym- 
pathy and divine condescension and compassion that 
we can never cease to wonder. Why he should have 
selected such a person as this, and such an occasion 
as this, to let out the great secret of his divine mis- 
sion has always seemed a mystery. 

Nicodemus was a ruler of the Jews and a learned 
student of the Old Testament, and it seemed right 
and proper that he should have unfolded to him the 
mysteries of the "new birth.'' Zaccheus, though 
small of stature, was a rich publican and also a 
"son of Abraham." Peter and James and John 

86 



NOT SOUGHT, BUT FOUND. 87 

were designed of him to be his future apostles. 
But here was a woman of bad character, of deep- 
rooted national prejudices, and showing no special 
grasp of mind. She appears long enough to call 
forth this wonderful discourse, and then, like Lot^s 
wife, vanishes as suddenly as she had appeared, and 
we hear no more about her. 

She was evidently one of the common class, and 
yet, under all her obtuseness of mind and national 
prejudice, she had not been devoid of all religious 
instruction. There was, to her mind, a hope, com- 
mon in those days, that the Messiah would come. 
She had been taught by the traditions of her people 
to look upon Mt. Gerizim as a holy mountain, and 
to expect the Messiah to come there, and not to 
Jerusalem. She was ready to discuss religious 
matters even with a stranger, and that stranger 
evidently a Jew. Gradually and most adroitly this 
stranger led her on from one point to another until 
he threw a sudden flash of light upon her sinful 
domestic life, and thus convinced her that he knew 
all about her past story of sorrow and of sin. 

No wonder that she tried to turn the conversa- 
tion, and to elude the keen scrutiny of those search- 
ing eyes which could read through and through her 
heart and character. It was not impertinence and 



88 A WORD TO THE WEARY. 

not unkindness on his part ; but, like a skillfii] sur- 
geon, he would probe deeper and deeper until the 
poor sinner herself should understand the nature 
of her malady. He intended to cure, but he could 
not do this until he went to the very seat of the 
disease. 

She had first perceived that he was a prophet. 
But by and by, to her wondering mind, he had 
said, "I am the Messiah.'^ Just then the disciples 
came, and while they '' marveled that he talked with 
the woman, yet no man said. What seekest thou ? 
or, Why talkest thou with her f^ They thought it 
strange, for men did not usually speak with a woman 
in public, but " the woman left her water-pot and 
went her way into the city, and saith to the men, 
Come, see a man which told me all things that ever 
I did : is not this the Christ?'' 

This was an exaggeration, a wild statement, but 
it was natural in her state of mind. What he did 
tell her showed that he knew all that ever she did, 
and with a quick flash of memory, like that which 
a man has when drowning, she did have brought 
back to her the salient points in a godless, sinful 
life. The whole course of her past life, with all its 
sorrows and all its sins, was made to stand out in 
vivid colors, and her heart sank within her, as she 



NOT SOUGHT, BUT FOUND. 89 

thought that here was a stranger who knew all about 
her. 

" The word of God is quick and powerful, and 
sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to 
the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of 
the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the 
thoughts and intents of the heart/^ Our Lord 
knew just what he was striking at and the word 
that was needed. It was not a random shot, but 
a centre shot at short range, and the cry came forth 
showing that the heart was struck. ^* All her sins 
were set in order before her,^^ and hastily leaving 
her water-pot, just as the fishermen left their nets, 
she hurried away to Sychar to tell the people the 
good news that the Messiah had come. "Come, 
see a man which told me all things that ever I 
did." 

If she had stopped at this the men might have 
thought that there was some wandering juggler or 
soothsayer or fortune-teller out there at the well. 
They might have thought that John the Baptist 
had suddenly appeared, or that God had raised up 
another prophet and sent him to Samaria, as he 
had sent prophets in the olden time. 

But she did not stop at that. " Is not this the 
Christ?" she asked. He had told her so, and had 



90 A WORD TO THE WEARY, 

confirmed it by telling her "all that ever she did/^ 
But the news seemed too good to be true ; and, be- 
sides, he was not a Samaritan. Evidently he was 
a Jew, and claimed that salvation was of the Jews. 
Still there was a strange power in the man — a won- 
drous insight into character, a marvelous fascina- 
tion about the way in which he had talked to her. 
All that she could say was, "Come and see for 
yourselves. Is not this the Christ?'^ 

What a wondrous change had been wrought by 
these words to one who was weary ! She had gone 
out to the well to draw water. She was a sinner, 
but the burden of her sin was as light to her as her 
empty water-pot. It did not concern her in the least. 
She was ready for a talk ev^en with a stranger, and 
that stranger a Jew. To bandy a few words of im- 
pertinence would serve to while away a few idle 
moments. She did not know the man, nor did she 
care to know him or to know what he was doing 
there. 

It could have been but a short conversation, for 
while they were talking the disciples came back 
with the bread they had bought. But what a 
change had come over the whole heart and life of 
that poor woman ! Saul went out to look after his 
father's asses, and was anointed a king. But this 



NOT SOUGHT, BUT FOUND. 91 

woman went out for a water-pot of water, and came 
back without the water-pot, but with a well of living 
water springing up in her own heart unto life ever- 
lasting. 

And, not content to keep the secret to herself, 
she told all she met, " Come, see a man which told 
me all things that ever I did. Is not this the 
Christ ?^^ "Then they went out of the city and 
came unto him.^^ There must have been a strange 
light in that woman's eye, a strange fire in that 
woman's heart, a strange urgency in that woman^s 
voice, which, together, made men feel that she had 
met with some wonderful man who had brought 
about a radical change in her heart. 

They knew who she was and what she was, and 
they would never have listened to her burning 
words had they not seen and felt that there was 
some one at the well worth going to see. "And 
many of the Samaritans of that city believed on 
him for the saying of the woman, which testified. 
He told me all that ever I did.^^ " So when the 
Samaritans were come unto him, they besought 
him that he would tarry with them ; and he abode 
there two days.'^ "And many men believed, be- 
cause of his own word ; and said unto the woman, 
" Now we believe, not because of thy saying, for we 



92 A WORD TO THE WEARY. 

have heard him ourselves, and know that this is in- 
deed the Christ, the Saviour of the world/^ Her 
words to them were confirmed. 

What a famous character that woman had be- 
come all at once ! Notorious she must have been 
before, but now she is the centre of religious attrac- 
tion, and around her are gathered these crowds of 
people, who are as full of joy and gladness as she 
is herself. And yet it was a short message that 
she had spoken. 

Besides, his own disciples had been there to buy 
bread ; why did they not tell these people that their 
Master was out at the well ready to preach to them 
the gospel of the kingdom ? Oh ! they were Jews, 
and had as deep a prejudice against the Samaritans 
as these had against the Jews. And so the Lord 
had to convert a Samaritan first, and then send her 
to tell the good news to those in her own city. 
, But when she came — a woman, and perhaps the 
weakest and the worst of them all — and told them 
how he had told her all that ever she did, they 
came out, prompted by a common impulse and 
ready to see for themselves. And when they came, 
Jacob's well became more famous than it had ever 
been since the days of the patriarch. And from 
that well, as a type of gospel grace, living fountains 



NOT SOUGHT, BUT FOUND. 93 

have sprung up in thousands of souls from that day 
to this. It has been a theme for the poet and the 
artist, for the teacher and the preacher, and, like 
that ^^ living water ^^ of which it tells, it is one of 
those perennial fountains of gospel truth that can 
never be exhausted. 

And in view of that wonderful well of salvation, 
the Saviour still stands and says, "If any man 
thirst, let him come unto me and drink/^ " Ho, 
every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters/' 
"And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And 
let him that heareth say. Come. And let him that 
is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take 
the water of life freely.^' 



CHAPTEE lY. 

THE BUKDEN LIFTED. 

rriHERE was a woman who was accused of sin, 
and who was arrested and brought before the 
Master. It was not because those who arrested her 
cared for the sin, but because they wanted to use 
her as a decoy to draw him into some fatal mis- 
take. 

It was a painful case, for the woman, though de- 
void of character and self-respect, must have shrunk 
from contact with such a pure and spotless being. 
Around her were those brazen hypocrites who 
claimed that according to the law of Moses she 
ought to be stoned to death. Self-righteous, but 
with the most malicious treachery in their hearts, 
they crov/d around him, not so much to convict 
the woman as to get some good ground on which 
they hope to convict the Lord himself. 

Reading the mean, low purpose of these malig- 
nant men, "he stooped down and wrote on the 
ground as if he heard them not.^' Thus he gave 
them time to think and to be ashamed of their un- 

94 



THE BURDEN LIFTED. 95 

manly and ungenerous conduct. But when he saw 
they were lost to all sense of shame, " He lifted up 
himself and said, He that is without sin, let him 
first cast a stone at her. And again he stooped 
down and wrote on the ground.'^ 

That was a centre shot, and he could afford to 
let it rankle in their consciences if these were not 
" seared with a hot iron.^^ Happily for them, this 
was not the case, for, showing that the shot had not 
missed the mark, we read: ^^And they that heard 
it, being convicted in their own conscience, w^ent 
out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto 
the last ; and Jesus was left alone, and the woman 
standing in the midst.^^ 

The Lord knew very well that all of them were 
gone, but '' when he had lifted up himself, and saw 
none but the woman, he said unto her. Woman, 
where are those thine accusers ? Hath no man con- 
demned thee? She said. No man, Lord.'^ This 
was true ; but how that poor, trembling, conscience- 
stricken woman must have felt under the searching 
eye of that spotless embodiment of inexorable jus- 
lice ! She knew that she was a sinner, and she knew 
that he knew too that she was a sinner. And 
while no man dared to confront her with the 
charge, under such exactions as he had made, she 



96 A WORD TO THE WEARY. 

must have known, and she did know, that all her 
sins were '' naked and opened to the eyes of him 
with whom she had to do/^ 

Justly, she might have dreaded to stand in his 
presence, for she must have known that she could 
not evade him. But instead of a withering rebuke 
or a word of harsh reproach, ^* Jesus said unto her, 
Neither do I condemn thee ; go, and sin no more/^ 

"A word in season to one that was weary ^^ ! A 
word to rebuke, to reproach, to bring back the 
memory of the sinful past, but at the same time a 
word to restore self-respect, to kindle repentance for 
the past and a hope for better things in the future ! 
" Go, and sin no more.'^ Turn away from that life 
of sin and shame. There is hope for you and there 
is help for you. But ^^sin no more.'^ "Your way 
is dark, and leads to hell.^^ As " a brand plucked 
from the burning,'^ I would rescue you from a 
life of ruin. But " sin no more.^^ Let the memory 
— ^the awful, wretched memory — of the wreck and 
ruin of the past be a beacon to warn you where the 
rocks are hid that can send you reeling down to 
ruin everlasting ! 

Has not this been "a word in season^' to many 
a weary soul since then? The world may turn 
against us. Good men and bad men may think 



THE BUBDEN LIFTED, 97 

and say hard things against us. In our o>vn hearts 
we may know that we are sinners. But when we 
stood face to face with Him who knew us bet- 
ter than all other men, and better than we know 
ourselves, there was such pity in his looks and such 
sympathy in his voice that we could feel somehow 
that we had one friend who would never desert us. 
And *^Go, and sin no more'^ has been to many of 
us an assurance of pardon, and an impulse and in- 
centive to a purer and a better life. 

There w^as another notable case where a mother 
came to him with ^^a daughter grievously vexed 
with a devil.'^ To her fervent and impassioned 
appeal at first, it is said, " he answered her not a 
word.^^ This seemed strange, harsh, unkind, un- 
generous, almost unmanly. And then, by way of 
extenuation, he said, ^' I am not sent but unto the 
lost sheep of the house of Israel.^^ Not thwarted 
even by such a rebuff, she came again " and wor- 
shiped him, saying. Lord, help me.'^ That surely 
would move and even melt him. ^' But he answer- 
ed and said. It is not meet to take the children's 
bread, and to cast it to dogs." This surely will re- 
pulse her, and even fill her with disgust. 

Ah ! She was a mother, and her daughter was 
^^ vexed with a devil f and that strange man had 



98 A WORD TO THE WEARY. 

the powex^ to ^^ cast out devils/' and there was the 
only hope for a rescue. That was enough for her j 
and so, undaunted and unabashed, she said, '' Truth, 
Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall 
from their master's table." '' Then Jesus answered 
and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith ; be 
it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter 
was made whole from that very hour." What a 
word that was — ^^ a word in season to one who was 
weary" ! " O woman, great is thy faith ; be it unto 
thee even as thou wilt." The whole treasury of 
God's untold riches of grace placed at the disposal 
of her own will on the ground of her faith ! 

And what was true of her is true of every mother 
who will come with the same faith and the same 
zeal and the same importunate resolution to " keep 
on praying" until she is heard. There is where we 
sometimes fail even where a great burden is resting 
on our souls. There is a want of faith or a want 
of zeal or a want of persistence, and so we miss the 
mark, and God does not grant what was to us the 
greatest want of our souls. 

But how can we fail to take hold of this " word 
in season to him that is weary"? Surely it has 
nerved the heart of many a parent when children, 
dear as life to them, have been bound hand and foot 



THE BURDEN LIFTED. 99 

to the devil. And it does come to us with as much 
assurance of hope as it did to that mother who would 
not allow herself to be bluflPed off by any apparent 
harshness. 

The fact is, we do not take these ^'wonderful 
words of life" as we ought to. We do not apply 
them to ourselves, as we have a right to do and as 
God expects us to do. We admire them, approve 
them, are even amazed at their richness of mean- 
ing. But pearls are not appreciated by swine ; and 
such is the perversity of human nature that we do 
not drink in all that is meant by these '' wonderful 
words of life." Rich as they are, sweet as they are, 
precious as they ought to be, they are to us as 
"sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal." 

Many of them are so old and familiar that they 
have long since lost their charm. And while they 
are as bread to the hungry, water to the thirsty, 
and honey out of the rock, somehow we do not feed 
on them to the nourishment of our souls. But the 
fact is, bread is insipid and tasteless, or even loath- 
some, to one who is not hungry, and there is loath- 
ing in the taste of honey to a surfeited soul. And 
hence even these words of the Lord Jesus are only 
sweet and precious to the soul that is weary. 

Reader, are you not weary and heavy-laden? 



100 A WORD TO THE WEARY. 

Are you not tired out with the struggle against sin, 
with the burden of a guilty conscience, with the 
vain effort to get rid of sin — sin in the heart and 
sin in the life ? If so, can there be found in all the 
Bible or in all the world a more seasonable word 
than this : " Come unto me all ye that labor and 
that are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest^^? 

" Oh, word of words the sweetest, 

Oh, word in which there lie 
All promise, all fulfillment. 

And end of mystery, 
Lamenting or rejoicing, 

With doubt or terror nigh, 
I hear the voice of Jesus, 

And to his cross I fly." 



< 



I 



CHAPTER V. 

SEEKING TO SAVE. 

rilHERE was a man named Zaccheus, who, being 
^ small of stature, had climbed a sycamore tree 
to get a look at the Master as he passed that way. 
He never dreamed that the Lord would see him, 
or care for him if he should happen to see him. 
But, to his utter amazement, there came an arrow 
up that tree that sent a thrill not of pain but of 
gladness to his soul : ^^ Zaccheus, make haste and 
come down, for to-day I must abide at thy house." 
And when they had talked the matter over, how 
strangely that ^^word in season came to one who 
was weary" ! "This day is salvation come to this 
house, forasmuch as he also is a son of Abraham. 
For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that 
which was lost." 

How many, many weary souls have been cheered 
and made glad by that one word of promise ! 

There is a natural disposition on the paii; of a 
sinner under conviction to think that he must seek 
the Saviour — that he must humble himself in the 

101 



102 A WORD TO THE WEABY, 

dust and somehow work himself up to a high pitch 
of excitement. In spite of himself he will take up 
an idea that there is a kind of unwillingness on the 
part of Christ to save him. He has some of that 
spirit shown by the prophets of Baal when they 
went through all kinds of religious antics and cried 
out, ^^ O Baal, hear us ! O Baal, hear us !" 

It seems as if there was a kind of grim, sarcastic 
humor in old Elijah when he taunted them with 
the hint that Baal was asleep or was talking to 
some one else. But there are people to-day who 
seem to have just about the same ideas of God, of 
Christ, of the Holy Spirit. To hear them talk or 
to hear them pray we would think they had an 
idea that the Lord Jesus had gone to sleep again 
while they were out at sea in the midst of a storm. 

But here was a man so small that he had to climb 
a tree to see over the heads of the people. It never 
occurred to him that the " Son of man was come to 
seek and to save that which was lost.'^ But that 
was true ; and, hid in the leaves, and smaller in 
character than he was in stature, the Lord saw him 
and sought him, and found him and saved him. 

Is there not something in all this to encourage 
hope in some who have a very small estimate of 
themselves ? Granting that you are young or small 



SEEKING TO SAVE. 103 

or insignificant; granting that you are a sinner, 
shrinking like that poor woman who '' only dared 
to touch the hem of his garment ;^^ granting that 
you are not worthy that he should come to your 
house^ — is it not a fact, a blessed fact, that the 
'' Son of man is come to seek and to save that which 
was lost''? 

And are you not lost ? A poor, helpless sinner, 
not able to think a good thought or to speak a good 
word or to feel an emotion that is worthy of him 
whom the angels worship and adore ! He said 
once, '' They that be whole need not a physician, 
but they that are sick/' '' For I am not come to 
call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." " For 
the Son of man is come to seek and to save that 
which was lost." He is like the woman who went 
all over the house sweeping with one hand and 
holding a candle in the other, looking for the lost 
piece of money. And you are the lost piece of 
money. In one sense, and perhaps by your own 
estimate, not worth much, but as God looks at it, 
and in the esteem of the Lord himself, worth more 
than a world. " For what shall it profit a man, 
if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own 
soul ? or what shall a man give in exchange for his 
soul?" 



104 A WORD TO THE WEARY. 

You are the lost sheep, with no more reason, 
no more prudence, no more knowledge how to 
get back into the fold than a sheep. But he is 
the " Good Shepherd/^ He laid down his life for 
the sheep, and ever since he has been leaving the 
ninety and nine and hunting up the one that is lost. 
The sheep are always straying, and so he has to 
be always on the search for those that are lost. 

Oh, if the sinner, young or old, would just grasp 
the idea, the true idea, the real idea, that is wrap- 
ped up in that " word^^ of the Master : ^^The Son 
of man is come to seek and to save that which was 
lost.^^ The Son of God became the Son of man, 
and came into the world to seek and to save ; not 
merely to seek, but also to save that which was 
lost. What a word, what a blessed, blessed word 
in season, that is to one that is weary ! 

There is another case which in some respects is 
the most touching miracle of all the list. ^^And 
they bring unto him one that was deaf, and had an 
impediment in his speech ; and they beseech him 
to put his hand upon him.^^ Now here was a deaf- 
mute. He could not ask the Lord to cure him, 
because he could not speak. The Lord could not 
speak to him, because he could not hear. How 
could he come in contact with him and cure him ? 



1 



SEEKING TO SAVE, 105 

"And he took him aside from the multitude^ and 
put his fingers into his ears, and he spit, and 
touched his tongue, and, looking up to heaven, he 
sighed, and saith unto him, Ephphatha, that is, be 
opened/^ 

Sign language ! It has always seemed to me that 
this scene had more of the humanity of Christ, the 
human pity and human condescension and human 
gentleness of the Son of God, than any other. 
Here was a man deaf and dumb, but the Lord 
knew the deaf-mute sign language as well as Greek 
or Hebrew. And while the man looked at him, as 
a deaf-mute will look to catch every movement, he 
touched his ears to show that these were to be 
opened. He touched his tongue to show that this 
was to be unloosed. He then looked up to heaven 
and sighed, as if in prayer, to let him know that the 
power must come from above. And thus, having 
told the man what he would do and how he would 
work, he spoke one word, " Ephphatha,^^ and the 
man was a deaf-mute no longer. Lazarus was dead, 
but he heard the words " Come forth,^^ and came 
forth. This man was deaf, but he heard that word 
" Ephphatha,^^ and his ears were opened by the 
same almighty power that called Lazarus back 
from the dead. 



106 A WORD TO THE WEARY, 

But what ^^a word in season to one who was 
weary ! ^^ How strange it must have seemed to 
the keen eye of this deaf-mute as he watched all 
the movements of this wonderful man ! And then, 
at once, to hear and to speak ! 

The Lord seems to have had a double lesson in 
that — one for those who teach and preach, and the 
other for those who, hearing, really do not hear. 
Our families, our Sunday-schools, our churches, are 
full of deaf-mutes. In a spiritual sense they can 
neither hear nor speak, and we are trying all the 
time to make them hear. Now and then, by a little 
sign language, we can catch their notice, and they 
seem to read what we mean by our actions, while 
they cannot hear our voice. 

But after all we are brought face to face with the 
fact that all our words are as powerless to move 
them as are the words spoken to a man as deaf as a 
post. What then ? Must we stop talking and stop 
preaching ? No ; but try to get at them by a sign 
language which they can comprehend, and in the 
mean time look up to let them know, and to let 
ourselves know, that the power must come from 
above — that we can no more make a deaf man hear 
than we can make a dead man come to life again. 
And when they and we can get that idea in our 



SEEKING TO SAVE. 107 

hearts, and pray as the Lord prayed and as we 
ought to pray, there will be One who will say, 
" Ephphatha ^ and they will be deaf-mutes no 
more for ever. 

And if this be true of such a marvelous change 
at conversion, what shall it be by and by ? Dr. A. 
A. Hodge thus tries to foretell what he has already 
experienced as to that outburst of rapture that comes 
to a dying saint : 

" For illustration,^^ he says, ^^ imagine the case of 
Laura Bridgman, born without the sense either of 
sight or hearing, and, of course, utterly unable to 
conceive the use or the essence of either experience. 
Suppose that her teacher, endowed with super- 
natural power, should have placed her some day 
of the year, in the spring days of her life, on some 
central tower in the harbor of Boston. At first she 
would stand in absolute isolation, teeming with 
force and life and mind, touching the world only 
through the soles of her feet and the zephyrs which 
fanned her cheek, yet enveloped in darkness and 
silence infinite ; alone and apart as really as if sunk 
in the abysses of night beyond the orbit of the 
nethermost sun. Suppose her teacher should then 
touch her and say, ^ Daughter, hear !' and at once 
there should flow into her open soul all the myriad 



108 A WORD TO THE WEARY, 

voices of the globe. Suppose the teacher should 
again touch her and say, ^ Daughter, see !' and sud- 
denly that hitherto isolated soul should pass out in 
one instant into the infinite world, and take into 
her irradiated consciousness all the visions of the 
sea and earth under the stupendous sky. Without 
moving herself, or any change of environment, the 
mere opening of the ear and eye would widen her 
horizon infinitely, and bring her face to face with a 
thousand worlds, all new. 

" Some such experience will be yours and mine 
when we are clothed upon with our glorified bodies 
on the morning of the resurrection. Coming up 
from rural or urban graveyards, rising before the 
awful whiteness of the throne and the intolerable 
glory of Him that sits thereon, and passing through 
the interminable ranks of flaming seraphs and dia- 
demed archangels, the perfect senses of our new 
bodies will bring us at once into the presence of the 
whole universe, of the music of all its spheres and 
of the effulgence of all its suns, of the most secret 
working of all its forces and of the recorded history 
of all its past.^^ 



CHAPTER yi. 

A WOKD OF EEPEOACH. 

rpHAT was a sad, sweet talk which our Saviour 
-^ had with his disciples just before he was be- 
trayed and arrested. There were many things he 
wanted to tell them which they might think over 
when he was gone. It seems to us that they had 
been very slow to learn a great many lessons he had 
taught them before this, and now that the end was 
so near there does seem to be a kind of special blind- 
ness on their part. 

First one and then another would ask questions 
that seem strange to us, possibly because we have 
been so familiar with these things all our days. It 
was hard for them to take in the fact that he had 
to leave them, that he had to die, and harder still 
that he had to be betrayed, and had to be arrested, 
and had to be tried, and had to be crucified. He 
was so dear to them and so blameless that they could 
not realize that there were men wicked enough to put 
him to death. 

When he told them of the place he was going to 

109 



110 A WORD TO THE WEARY. 

prepare for them, and said, ^^ And whither I go ye 
know, and the way ye know. Thomas saith unto 
him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest ; and how 
can we know the way ?'^ And then, when he began 
to talk to them of the Father, "Philip saith unto 
him. Lord, show us the Father and it sufficeth us/^ 
Then it was that the Master seemed actually sur- 
prised, and we have these words of gentle reproach : 
" Jesus said unto him. Have I been so long time 
with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip V 

We are not surprised that in a certain sense he 
was amazed at such stupidity, at such obtuseness 
and want of knowledge. For nearly three years he 
had been their constant companion. He had walked 
about with them and talked to them and instructed 
them in the things concerning the kingdom. He 
had told them a great many things in the most di- 
rect and simple language. He had spoken to them 
other things in parables. He had taught them 
also through miracles, thus showing them, in the 
most practical and forcible way, who he was, what 
he was and why he came into the world. 

The truths he declared were spiritual truths, 
but it seems to us that, as he must have taught 
them, they ought to have understood them, and 
ought to have taken them into their very secret soul 



A WORD OF REPROACH. Ill 

and fed on them as on hidden manna. But here 
were two of them asking questions which a child 
ought not to have asked after three years of such 
schooling under such a Teacher. And so to one of 
them, with wonderful patience and pity, the Lord 
said, " Have I been so long time with you, and yet 
hast thou not known me, Philip V^ There was no 
harshness, no sharpness, in the reprimand, but there 
was what we would call human surprise and morti- 
fication. Of course he understood how it was, but 
to a mere man such spiritual stupidity would have 
been perfectly amazing and unaccountable. 

It seems to us that our Lord's personal character 
must have been so conspicuous and so transparent 
that surely his own disciples ought to have known 
who he was, what he was and therefore what was 
before him in his mission among men. His mother 
knew him. John the Baptist knew him. Peter 
knew him. And all these testified to the fact of 
his divine mission and commission. But Thomas 
doubted, Philip did not understand him, and Judas, 
one of the twelve, must have misread and misunder- 
stood the whole person and work of this divine 
being who took on him our nature that he might be 
the Saviour of the lost. 

What was the cause of this ignorance, and what 



112 A WORD TO THE WEARY. 

is the cause of that same profouDd ignorance on our 
part? What he said to Philip is just as true of 
many of us who have been taught of him and about 
him ever since we were old enough to learn any- 
thing. There is not a child in our Sunday-schools 
and churches who has not heard enough to make 
him wise unto salvation. There is not one in our 
usual audiences who has not heard more plainly and 
more distinctly brought out the distinctive truths of 
the gospel than did these disciples of our Lord and 
Master. They were Jews, and had to unlearn much 
that had been taught them before they were ready 
to take in what was taught them by our Lord. 

But we, the grown people and children of to-day, 
have never known anything but what the Bible 
teaches as ^* the way of life.'^ We believe that to 
be the word of God, and seldom hear anything that 
conflicts with what is taught there as " the truth, the 
whole truth, and nothing but the truth. ^' 

Yes, but much of our Bible reading and much 
of our gospel hearing is alike unproductive of any 
special good, because what w^e read and what we 
hear is not actually taken into the mind and into 
the soul. For the time and at the time we are 
pleased and entertained and lulled into a state of 
pleasant peacefulness and quiet. But we are like 



A WORD OF REPROACH. 113 

the man who looks at his natural face in a glass, 
and goes away forgetting what manner of man he 
is. There may be some vague, confused notion of 
what we have read and what we have heard, but, 
after all, the truth does not always do us good, as 
it ought to do good to the upright in heart. 

'' Therefore we ought to give the more earnest 
heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any 
time we should let them slip.'' The most retentive 
memory is apt to let slip what is heard unless we 
are very careful to attend closely at the time and 
with the keenest interest to what is read or spoken. 
The main reason why Christ was not better 
known by them, and is not better known by us> 
is the want of spiritual insight. They looked 
at what appeared on the surface, on the outside 
— ^at what was apparent to the senses. They saw 
his miracles and they heard his words, and from 
these they must have drawn the conclusion that he 
w^as a most marvelous man. There were times 
when they seemed to take in the idea that he was 
divine. There were many things about him that 
could not be reconciled with the theory that he 
was merely a man. Moses and mariy others in the 
olden time had wrought miracles, but there was 
something about this man that vyas far above and 

8 



114 A WORD TO THE WEAEY. 

beyond all that they had ever read about or heard 
about in the way of tradition. He could still the 
tempest and raise the dead by a mere word of com- 
mand. By his own power, and as the result of his 
own sovereign and supernatural power, all things 
obeyed him. 

But, for all this, there was wanting in his disciples 
what is wanting in us — a spiritual insight which 
could look down into his soul and read all the inner 
spiritual power that was veiled in that perfect hu- 
man form. "He was holy, harmless, undefiled, 
and separate from sinners.'^ They must have known 
that after being with him for three years. They 
must have looked upon him as the very incarnation 
of all that they had ever heard touching the being 
and character of God himself. 

But was he God ? If so, and they believed it, 
why did Philip say, " Show us the Father, and it 
sufficeth us '^ ? Ah, these were spiritual things that 
had to be " spiritually discerned.^^ And their " eyes 
were holden,'^ that they could not spiritually grasp 
the spiritual truths that were wrapped up in the 
very person of this " Son of God.^^ 

And there is just where the trouble is with us. 
We are prone to look at the outward appearance, 
while God looks at the heart, and we naturally 



A WORD OF REPROACH. 115 

look at that which is external, and not at that 
which is internal and spiritual. 

Take such a text as this : ^' For our light afflic- 
tion, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a 
far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory ^^ etc. 
There is not an assurance in the Bible that is more 
familiar than this, nor one freighted with more real 
comfort to a sorrowing soul. But how is it, and 
why is it, that we find it so hard to take in all the 
comfort and strength that such an assurance is in- 
tended and calculated to impart? *^The things 
which are seen^^ are what take up our time and 
our thoughts, to the exclusion of those "things 
which are not seen^^ and which "are eternal.^^ 

Many a Christian man is misunderstood by the 
people of the world because they cannot look into 
the spiritual state of such a man. They have no 
conception of what that man thinks, and of how he 
feels and how he finds peace and gladness of heart 
by communing with God. They misread his mo- 
tives and misunderstand his actions, and many a 
time look upon his words as an expression of hy- 
pocrisy. They really know nothing of the conflict 
raging in his heart, and how hard it is for him to 
do right and what is well pleasing to God. 

And of course such a man as that, full of the 



116 A WOEI) TO THE WEARY. 

world and of worldly plans and schemes, cannot 
appreciate the character and the work of our Lord 
Jesus Christ. There is nothing iu common between 
them, and on the man's part ^^ there is no beauty in 
Christ, that he should desire him/' But w^here we 
have a true Christian friend and companion, the 
more we see of him and the more we find him like 
Christ, the more we love him, the more we admire 
him and the more we aim to be like him, as he is 
like Christ. 

John seems to have had a deeper, truer, more 
spiritual insight into the character of Christ than 
any of the twelve, because John was more like him 
than any of the others. And so he was known as that 
disciple whom Jesus loved. There was a wonder- 
ful oneness, sympathy, harmony, similarity of taste 
and feeliug and of general aspiration between them. 
He knew him as Philip did not, and so the Lord 
did not have to rebuke him. 

And now the questions come home to us, How 
long has Christ been with us ? How long have we 
walked in company? How long have we been 
associated as Saviour and saved, as Redeemer and 
redeemed, as King and subjects, as Master and 
disciples? Some of us for many years. Longer 
than Philip or John or James or Peter when these 



A WORD OF REPROACH. 117 

words were spoken. Some of us — yes, in a certain 
sense the most of us — from our childhood. There 
never was a time when we did not have a knowledge 
of who he was and what he was, and what he pro- 
posed to be to us and to do for us. There never 
was a time, since we knew anything, when we did 
not look upon him as a Saviour, and hope and ex- 
pect to be saved by his precious blood. There never 
was a time when we did not look upon him as the 
only Saviour, and when we did not feel that all 
who are saved are to be saved by him. 

And for many years some of us have been trying 
to walk with him, to live with him, to commune 
with him. But what do we know of Christ? 
What have we learned of Christ ? What have we 
found out that we did not know at first? Have 
we studied more and more deeply and truly ? Have 
we sat at his feet, as Mary did, and listened to what 
he told us of all those wondrous things that are 
written in his law? Have we had faith, unques- 
tioning faith, unshaken confidence, in all that he 
has told us of his wondrous love? 

Do we love him more now than when we first 
believed? And as we have grown in years and 
in knowledge and experience have we gained a 
deeper and a more spiritual insight into that " love 



118 A WORD TO THE WEARY. 

of Christ which passeth knowledge^' ? " The path 
of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more 
and more unto the perfect day/^ It would be a very- 
sad case, then, if Christ should have to say to us, 
^^ Have I been so long time with you^ and yet hast 
thou not known me ?'^ 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE HOUSE OF SOEKOW. 

rrillEIlE were two sisters who lived in a little 
-^ town not far from the city of Jerusalem. They 
were loving and tender, but they were unlike in 
character and disposition. One was a busy and 
bustling housekeeper, full of energy and activity 
and of zeal about her domestic affairs. The other 
seemed to care but little for such matters, but her 
mind seemed to be meditative and full of spiritual 
thoughts and dreamy speculations. They were both 
types of sisters who are found in many a family of 
the present day. Both types were needed then, and 
both are needed now, and together make up that 
"unity in diversity'^ which is so essential to a 
beautiful home circle. 

The practical, hard-working, stirring housekeeper 
is a complement to the thoughtful, meditative 
maiden who loves to sit and read and think and 
muse on those spiritual things which are of vastly 
more importance than the merely temporal things 
which must "perish with the using.^^ 

119 



120 A WORD TO THE WEARY. 

But such characters are apt to come in conision 
and to bring about a state of discord in the family. 
They are each apt to go off into an extreme in their 
respective spheres^ and not to have as much sym- 
pathy and charity for each other as sisters or broth- 
ers should have. The fact is, none of us have as 
much patience as we ought to have with those who 
differ with us in our conscientious convictions. Our 
own way of thinking and acting is apt to seem to 
us the best, and it is hard for us to keep in mind 
the fact that brothers or sisters in the family or in 
the church have as much right to their way of think- 
ing and doing as we have. Nor is it easy for us to 
grant, even to ourselves, that their way of think- 
ing and doing may be even better than our own. 

So it was at Bethany. Martha was busy about 
the house, but Mary Avas content and happy to 
sit down at the feet of the Master and hear him 
talk. In a certain sense both were right, and God 
had made them to differ. But Martha was impatient 
with her sister, and evidently mistook her inquisi- 
tive spiritual mood for an indolence that needed re- 
buke. And hence, in her abrupt and practical 
way, she came in and said, " Lord, dost thou not 
care that my sister hath left me to serve alone ? bid 
her therefore that she help me.^' 



THE HOUSE OF SORROW. 121 

Now, here was a good chance for a family explo- 
sion. Sisters are not fond of being rebuked in 
the presence of visitors by another sister, and here 
was an insinuation that Mary was too selfish and too 
indolent to help attend to household matters. A 
word from Mary in the same strain and in the same 
petulant spirit might have furnished a sufficient 
provocative to bring about such a scene as some 
of us have been forced to witness in homes. 

But, having ^^ the tongue of the learned/^ see how 
quickly and how quietly Jesus put a stop to this 
rising discord, and sent Martha back to her work 
with a theme large enough and grand enough to 
keep her mind busy while her hands were at work : 
"Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled 
about many things ; but one thing is needful, and 
Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not 
be taken away from her.'^ 

Solomon says, "A soft answer turneth away 
wrath f^ and while this was a reproof, a rebuke, it 
must have been spoken with such a warm heart and 
such a gentle voice that there was no sting in it ex- 
cept as such faithful words will always touch an 
awakened conscience. But it w^as " a word in season 
to one who was weary." Insensibly, it may be, Mar- 
tha had allowed her thoughts to become absorbed 



122 A WORD TO THE WEABY, 

with these merely temporal and domestic affairs. 
These cares were a burden, and a burden that some 
one had to bear. The Lord knew that as well as she 
did, and he did not find fault with the fact that she 
was ^^ cumbered with much serving/^ He saw that 
she was wearied, that she was out of patience and 
petulant, and half angry with her sister. It was not 
the work, but the worry, the needless worry, that 
was chafing her spirit and arousing her temper, and 
to correct this useless waste of nerve-power, as well 
as to save her soul from sin, he would gently re- 
mind her that there is " one thing needful ^^ for 
every human being. It was religion, pure and 
undefiled religion — religious faith, religious thought, 
religious hope, religious principle — that would help 
her even in her household matters. 

We cannot say that this " word spoken in season '^ 
was the cause of her conversion ; but, at all events, 
when we visit her house again she is a very differ- 
ent woman. 

Lazarus was dead, and the Master, who had been 
there so often before, did not come at once when he 
was sent for. And when he did come, too late to do 
any good, as they thought, Martha shows the same 
active, restless, impetuous spirit. Religion does 
not destroy our natural characteristics, but turns 



THE HOUSE OF SORROW. 123 

them into new channels. And so, when the news 
came .at last that he was there, Martha started off 
without a word to her sister, " but Mary sat still in 
the house/^ Being more active and watchful as to 
outside matters, Martha seems to have heard the 
good news first, and in haste she went out to greet 
him. But it was with a word of reproach which 
she could not repress, and which was not intended 
as impertinence : " Lord, if thou hadst been here, 
my brother had not died.^^ 

But, showing how she too had chosen ^^ the good 
part,'^ as well as Mary, with a sublime faith she 
added, "But I know''— not "I think" nor "I 
hope,'' but "I know" — "that even now, whatso- 
ever thou wilt ask of God, God will give it thee." 

She may not have had as much faith for herself 
as she needed, but she did have unbounded faith in 
his prayers to God for all that he chose to ask of 
God. And, after all, that is the very essence of 
prayer. We are not heard for our much speaking 
nor for our earnest speaking, but when the Lord 
Jesus takes the case in hand, learns of our wants 
and takes them to God endorsed by his own media- 
torial signature, God will honor the draft, whether 
it be large or small, for " him the Father heareth 
always." 



124 A WOBD TO THE WEABY, 

" And his grace and power are such, 
He can never ask too much." 

But in answer to this most remarkable confession 
the Lord spoke another ^* word in season ^' to this 
weary soul. "Jesus saith unto her, Thy brother 
shall rise again/' Oh, what " a word '^ that was ! 
And what a world of comfort it has been to weary- 
souls ever since ! 

" If a man die, shall he live again f was a ques- 
tion which had then been discussed from the days of 
Job, and has been discussed ever since, and is dis- 
cussed all over the world at the present day. It was 
pressed home upon the hearts of these anxious sis- 
ters at this time, for it had become a practical ques- 
tion with them. There had just been a burial from 
that house, and the gloom of death was still resting 
on that home circle. The brother was out there in 
the grave, and in a short time the body would be a 
mass of dust. It was already fast going to decay, 
and they had been forced to bury it out of their 
sight. They had been taught to hope and believe 
that it was not for ever, for Martha was not a Saddu- 
cee, and believed in the resurrection of the dead. 

And now, to confirm that faith in the doctrine 
and to make it a matter of personal application, he 
says, "Thy brother shall rise again.'' "Martha 



THE HOUSE OF SORROW. 125 

saitli unto him, I know that he shall rise again iu 
the resurrection at the last day/^ And then came 
that ^' word ^^ which has been ^^ a word in season to 
weary souls ^^ ever since : 

'^ Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection and 
the life : he that believeth in me, though he were 
dead, yet shall he live : and whosoever liveth and 
believeth in me shall never die/' 

Blot out these words from the Bible, and what a 
blank would be left ! What a fountain of life and 
grace and peace and comfort they have been to 
weary, heavy-laden souls ever since ! No longer a 
matter of dreamy speculation or of wild and uncer- 
tain hypothesis ; the Lord of light and life himself 
has told us of the hereafter, ^^ I am the resurrection 
and the life/' There is no uncertain sound about 
that. The word is clear and loud as the archan- 
gel's trump that shall wake the dead. And it 
reaches us in these ends of the earth as we weep 
over our buried dead and wonder whether we shall 
ever look again upon their faces. It is hard to 
think that we shall, and yet it would be dreadful 
not to hope so. 

There are some who do not believe it, and who 
say that all go down together and are lost for ever 
in a common grave. But it does seem that it would 



126 A WORD TO THE WEABY. 

take more faith not to believe these words of our 
Lord Jesus than it does to let them confirm what 
must be th6 hope, the burning hope, of every human 
heart. And were you to take away this one bright 
light, this electric light that shines even in a grave- 
yard, that graveyard would be the darkest place in 
all this world. 



CHAPTER yill. 

A WOED TO MOTHEKS. 

OTRANGE as it may seem to us, there came a 
'^ time when the Sermon on the Mount had to be 
put in practice by ^^Mary, the mother of Jesus/' 
It would seem that she had '' left all and followed 
him.'' Time and again we find her near to him 
and far aw^ay from the old home at Nazareth. It 
would seem that Joseph was now dead, and as a 
widowed mother without a home she was then at Je- 
rusalem. Not one heart in all that surging crowd 
around the cross had such personal human grief as 
had Mary the mother, who had to look upon that 
awful death. To others he was a friend, an instructor, 
a benefactor, a redeemer. There must have been 
many there who had ofttimes received tokens of his 
kindness, and who would feel the deepest anguish 
at the sight of his agony on the cross. But of all 
that crowd, she was his mother ; and with all the 
sensitive love of a mother she saw him in that fear- 
ful death-grapple. He was her Saviour as well as 
theirs, but he was also her son. And the fact that 

127 



128 A WORD TO THE WEARY, 

she was a ^' sinner saved by grace '^ did not detract 
from the yearning tenderness of her mother love. 
The disciples would miss him as their teacher, as 
their friend and Master, but she would miss him 
as her son. And now that he was about to leave 
her, the bitter thought would obtrude itself that in 
all this world there was not a place that she could 
call her home. 

He might have spoken into existence, even then, 
a palace worthy of such a mother — the mother, 
not " of God,^^ but of '' the Son of God.^^ And in 
such an hour as that he did not forget his mother, 
but, filial to the last, we have these loving words, 
which must have been '' a word in season ^^ to her 
weary soul : '^ When Jesus, therefore, saw his 
mother, and the disciple standing by, whom he 
loved, he saith unto his mother. Woman, behold thy 
son! Then saith he to the disciple. Behold thy 
mother ! And from that hour that disciple took 
her unto his own home.'^ 

It has sometimes seemed that in the rebound 
from Komanism we Protestants swing too far the 
other way. While very properly horrified at the 
idea of offering to Mary that worship which is due 
to God alone, let us not forget that Mary was a 
woman ; and not only a woman, but a mother ; and 



A WORD TO MOTHERS. 129 

not only a mother, but the mother of the most re- 
markable man that ever lived on earth. 

The very fact that she was a woman, a human 
being, made her liable to all the infirmities of any 
other mother. She was proud of her son, and 
never ceased to ponder in her heart what had been 
told her by the angel at the time of the annunciation. 
Other mothers may brood over superstitious signs 
and omens, and, in spite of their better judgment, 
may be more or less influenced by these things. 
But she knew that God had sent her a message, 
and from that message she never lost sight of the 
fact that this son of hers was the Messiah. The 
wife of a carpenter, she knew that her son was 
" The Prince of the house of David,^^ that he was 
born " King of the Jews.^^ 

But now that son of hers, in the most unaccount- 
able way, had been arrested, tried, convicted, con- 
demned and was actually dying — and dying on a 
cross ! 

Many a mother has stood by the cradle or the bed 
on which her child — whether an infant or a grown 
man or woman — was dying. But dark, strange^ 
mysterious as such a death, and any death, always 
is, the " mother of Jesus ^^ never expected to see him 
die, and surely not such a horrible death as that. 



130 A WORD TO THE WEARY. 

He was the " Son of God/^ and if Enoch was trans- 
latedj and Elijah was carried to heaven in a chariot 
of fire, why could not her son have some grander 
triumphal entry into that heavenly home which was 
his by birthright and his by covenant? 

But all these motherly dreams were fading, dimly 
fading, as she stood there, under the shadow of his 
cross, and watched him dying. " He saved others ; 
himself he could not save;'^ and though he was 
the " Son of God,^^ he could not come down from 
the cross even at the passionate pleadings of a 
mother's love. But even at such a time as that 
he could not forget that his mother was there. 
Looking upon John, whom he loved more than all 
the rest, he entrusted to that beloved disciple his 
own mother as the priceless legacy of his dying 
love : " Woman, behold thy son !'' " Son, behold 
thy mother !'' And from that time she had a 
home with the best man on earth. 

Surely such a word at such a time, coming from 
such a heart, ought to be ^^ a word in season '^ to 
every stricken mother who, like Rachel, is " weep- 
ing for her children, and will not be comforted, be- 
cause they are not.'' 

" Joy of the comfortless, light of the straying, 
Hope of the penitent, fadeless and pure, 



A WORD TO MOTHERS, 131 

Here speaks the Comforter, tenderly saying, 

' Earth has no sorrow that Heaven cannot cure.' " 

There was another striking case^ where a word 
came in season to his own disciples. They had 
started across the Sea of Galilee. ^^And it was 
now dark, and Jesus was not come to them. And 
the sea arose by reason of a great wind that blew.^' 
We can easily catch the spirit of these men as they 
looked out upon the waves in the darkness of the 
night. Not that they were afraid of the storm, for 
the wind only made it rough enough to enhance the 
sight of what was soon to startle them. Seafaring 
men are aluiost sure to be superstitious ; and it is 
not to be wondered at, for, of all the places in the 
world for producing strange and fantastic fancies, 
the sea is best calculated, and especially on a dark 
night, when you can hear only the roar of the 
wind and the rushing of the waters. 

But while they are peering out into the dark- 
ness " they see Jesus walking on the sea, and draw- 
ing nigh unto the ship: and they were afraid.^^ 
That was a wild dream of Coleridge which led him 
to write of a phantom ship with a phantom crew 
drifting through the darkness. But here was a 
stranger sight than that. " Be it man or angel or 
goblin damned,^^ in their affright they cannot tell. 



132 A WORD TO THE WEARY. 

But there was an apparition of a man walking on 
the water^ ^^and they were afraid/^ 

The touch or the word of a mother will quiet the 
fears of a child at midnight. And so that word, 
" It is I ; be not afraid/^ soothed and stilled the fears 
of these anxious disciples in a moment ; for they 
then knew that all was well. 

But the word did not stop there, for it has been 
**a word in season to weary souls'^ ever since. 
Many and many a time, when the night was dark 
and the sea was rough, and mysterious sights and 
sounds would startle our fears, we have heard that 
voice and been still. It has come to us like the 
" All's well r' of the man at the mast-head, which, 
caught up by one and another along the deck, brings 
peace and confidence to all who are on board. 

" When waves of trouble round me swell, 
My soul is not dismayed ; 
I hear a voice I know full well : 
*TisI; be not afraid.' " 

God help US all to say that from the heart. 

It may be that these words will be read by some 
who have no part nor lot in such matters. Are there 
not times in the history of all when you are weary 
and heavy-laden, and would give all the world to 



A WORD TO MOTHERS. 133 

hear a word which, by the grace of God, might 
prove to be " a word in season ^^? Have there not 
been times, even in the short life of some of the 
young people, when they would have given anything 
in reason to be able to throw out one of these an- 
chors and feel sure that it would hold fast in the 
most furious storm ? Some of us have lived long 
enough to be ready to endorse the words, wrung out 
from the breaking heart of a mother, '' There is noth- 
ing in this world worth living for but religion/^ 
That was what she said, and what every one of us 
will feel and say one of these days. 

You may not have lived long enough to see " vani- 
ty of vanities '^ painted upon the walls, or to hear it 
whispered amid the pattering footfalls of the merri- 
est dancers. But the time will come — and it may 
come soon — when you will realize the hollowness, 
the emptiness, of all that is "without God and 
without hope in the world." 

Not that we would plant one thorn in your pillow, 
or cast one shadow on your joyous soul, or wither 
one flower that blooms along your pathway. But 
" your way is dark and leads to hell.'^ In spite of 
all the artificial lights that flash and gleam around 
you, " your way is dark.'^ Yes, dark as Egypt was 
when God's frown shut off the sunlight and left " a 



134 A WORD TO THE WEARY. 

darkness that could be felt/' And it " leads to hell "! 
There is such a place. Men may try not to think 
about it, and try not to believe it, but, in spite of 
all sceptical doubts and efforts to suppress the truth, 
our own hearts confirm these words of the Bible : 
" These shall go away into everlasting punishment, 
but the righteous into life eternal/' 

Think of the Prodigal : "And he began to be in 
want/' What then ? " And when he came to him- 
self, he said, How many hired servants of my 
father's have bread enough and to spare, and I per- 
ish with hunger !" These were sad thoughts for 
that young profligate. But he had come to him- 
self, and " Come home ! come home !" had been 
ringing, not in his ears, but in his conscience and in 
his heart. And when he heard these words, he said 
like a man, like a madman whose madness is gone, 
" I will arise, and go to my father, and will say 
unto him. Father, I have sinned against heaven and 
before thee, and am no more worthy to be called 
thy son ; make me as one of thy hired servants." 
That was the manliest thing that young man had 
ever said. And when he acted on the gracious im- 
pulse of the moment, he showed that he was now 
w^hat he never had been before — worthy to be called 
his father's son. 



A WORD TO MOTHERS, 135 

" Come home ! come home ! 
You are weary at heart, 
For the way has been dark, 
And so lonely and wild. 
O prodigal child, 
Come home ! oh, come home ! 

" Come home ! come home ! 
For we watch and we wait, 
And we stand at the gate, 
While the shadows are piled. 
O prodigal child, 
Come home ! oh, come home !" 



CHAPTER IX. 

NOT A WOED, BUT A LOOK. 

^^ A ND about the space of one hour after, another 
^ confidently affirmed, saying, Of a truth, this 
fellow also was with him ; for he is a Galilean.^^ 
"And Peter said, Man, I know not what thou 
say est. And immediately, while he yet spake, the 
cock crew.^^ "And the Lord turned and looked 
upon Peter J^ That was all. He did not speak a 
word, but just turned his pitying eyes upon him 
and looked a rebuke which mere language could not 
have expressed. 

In that look there must have been a mingled ex- 
pression of tenderness and sympathy and sorrow. 
But it was also intended as a severe rebuke. It re- 
buked his self-reliance. It rebuked his impetuosity. 
It rebuked his cowardice. It rebuked his treachery. 
It rebuked him for a willful falsehood told to shield 
himself from danger. Yes, there was a terrible re- 
buke in that silent look, that spoke to. his secret soul 
and stirred up tears of penitence that were bitter in 
their reproaches against him. 

136 



NOT A WORD, BUT A LOOK. 137 

^^ He went out and wept bitterly/' What must 
have been his feelings as he sat there alone, weeping, 
in the dark and chilly night ! How keen must have 
been the reproaches of conscience ! How deep his 
self-abasement ! How vile and miserable and un- 
grateful he must have felt as he thought of that 
mild but withering glance of wounded aifection ! 
It was a time never to be forgotten, for that was 
godly sorrow working "a repentance that needed 
not to be repented of/' 

There is one ordinance of the Lord's house where 
this scene ought always to come back to us — viz. 
" The Lord's Supper." It is a scene of peculiar 
and solemn interest to all, whether in the Church or 
not. In it we are to "celebrate the Lord's death 
until he comes." In that sweet and awful place 
" Jesus is evidently set forth crucified among us." 
We are to " do this in remembrance of him." It 
is *^ a sign and seal " of our faith in him. It is a 
renewed pledge of our allegiance to. him, a visible 
manifestation of our love for him and a promise 
on our part to serve and obey him. 

In such an ordinance, then, we find a most suitable 
place to testify our allegiance to him ; and if not, 
it is there that " a deniaV^ stands out distinct and 
conspicuous. It is there that his true disciples are 



138 A WORD TO THE WEARY. 

called upon to assert their devotion^ and it is there 
that'we may, by sin and impenitence, deny that we 
know the man. He is always present in such a scene 
— not to be tried before Pilate or a Jewish high 
priest, but to speak words of comfort to his saints. He 
is there to encourage the faint-hearted, to strengthen 
the weak, to cheer the disconsolate, to bind up the 
broken-hearted, to comfort all that mourn. 

He is there, too, to test our love, to try our devo- 
tion, to measure our improvement, to excite our de- 
votions, to increase our consecration. Bat he is 
there also to look upon his enemies, to watch his de- 
spisers, to condemn his betrayers, to rebuke, with 
a mild look of terrible reproach, those who in any 
way deny him. 

And could we see, as Peter did, that tender but 
reproachful look, our hearts would throb with silent 
sorrow, our heads would sink in shame, our lips 
would tremble with conscious guilt, our eyes would 
fill with tears and we should go out and weep 
bitterly. 

In what is known as the Passover Psalm (the 
116th) the Psalmist says: "I will offer to thee the 
sacrifice of thanksgiving, and will call upon the 
name of the Lord. I will pay my vows unto the 
Lord now in the presence of all his people, in the 



NOT A WORD, BUT A LOOK. 139 

courts of the Lord^s house, in the midst of thee, O 
Jerusalem. Praise ye the Lord.^^ This is just 
what we all ought to say and to do in a communion 
service. But have we done it ? 

Do you remember that time when you were lying 
upon a bed of illness and, you thought, a bed of 
death ? And as the death damp seemed to be gath- 
ering upon your brow and the death chill began to 
settle on your heart, do you remember how you 
prayed for mercy ? Do you remember how you 
made a solemn vow that if God would raise you up 
you would gladly give your heart to Jesus and pre- 
pare for death and the judgment? 

Where are all those vows ? Have you kept them ? 
No ; they have been broken and are almost forgotten, 
and you are still treading the broad and beaten path 
that leadeth to destruction. You are " denying the 
Lord^' that has brought you back from the very 
borders of the pit. 

Do you remember that dark, dismal day when 
you stood by the death-bed of some one dear to you 
as your own life ? And, as a mist came over your 
eyes and a cloud came over your soul, do you re- 
member those farewell words that were spoken, and 
that dying injunction, " Meet me in heaven ^^ ? Do 
you remember that, with a broken heart, you an- 



140 A WORD TO THE WEARY, 

swered, " By the help of God, I will ^' ? God saw 
your heart then, and heard that solemn vow, and 
recorded it in his "book of remembrance/^ But 
have you kept it ? Alas ! no. You are living in 
such a way as to make that a final farewell. You 
deny the very Saviour who took that dying saint 
to heaven. Oh, the melting gaze of Jesus ! How 
it must burn into your very soul as that scene 
comes back to you through the misty haze of the 
past ! 

Do you remember how, amid the stirring scenes 
of a revival, your heart was moved to its deepest 
depths, and how it sank within you and how your 
conscience upbraided you as all your sins were 
set in order before you ? Do you remember how 
vile you seemed to be, how miserable you felt, 
how wicked and depraved your heart appeared, 
in the light of God^s truth? Do you remember 
how you wept over your sins, how you prayed 
for pardon, how hard you tried to be a Christian? 

You feel now that you did not try in the right 
way. You see that you did not go at once to 
Jesus and cast all your burden on the Lord. 
You know that you were trying to make a right- 
eousness of your own, while God says, "All your 
righteousnesses are as filthy rags.^' 



NOT A WORD, BUT A LOOK. 141 

But what has become of all those serious 
thoughts and feelings? Do you ever have them 
now? No; they are all gone, and you are just 
as careless and thoughtless as you ever were be- 
fore. You seldom think about religion now, and 
never, it may be, of personal piety. But you 
were once almost persuaded to be a Christian; 
"not far from the kingdom of God.'^ Like the 
young ruler who came running to Christ, there 
may have been something so fascinating about you 
that Jesus loved you. 

But what must be his feelings now ? How must 
he regard you? He said to you then, " One thing 
thou lackest,^^ and you too " went away sorrowful ^' 
because there was some darling lust you were not 
willing to give up for the sake of your soul. But 
now he turns his pitying eyes upon you as he sees 
that you still deny him and say by your conduct, 
^' I know not the man.^^ 

There is another class, however, who sometimes 
"deny the Master ^^ on a communion occasion. 
They are members of the church, but for various 
reasons they will not take part in this solemn or- 
dinance. Some refuse because they do not think 
they are as spiritually minded as they ought to 
be. This is just like sinners who will not come to 



142 A WORD TO THE WEARY, 

Jesus because they feel unworthy to be received. 
It is like a hungry man not eating because he is 
hungry, or a thirsty man not drinking because he 
is thirsty. 

You feel that you are a very poor Christian, 
that you are worldly-minded, that you are almost 
a reproach to the cause of Christ. Yes, you are 
not worthy to come to the Lord's table. You 
have lived too much for the world, have been too 
much engaged in the things of time and sense, 
have thought too little about Christ and holy 
things, and because of these things you are going 
to deny the Lord before the world. 

You profess to believe that ^Hhe blood of 
Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanseth us from all sin/^ 
but by your actions you seem to deny this great 
fundamental doctrine. So far as your sins and 
your personal unworthiness are concerned, you are 
right. We all ought to feel that in and of our- 
selves we have no right to commune. It is only 
those who are hungering and thirsting after right- 
eousness that can come to the Lord's Table and be 
filled. It is because we have these feelings of con- 
trition and humility that Christ invites us to come. 
Here we are to enlarge our hearts, to increase our 
faith, to deepen our piety. There, at his table, we 



NOT A WORD, BUT A LOOK, 143 

are to get new supplies of grace^ so as to renew 
our strength. 

Do not let these feelings keep you away, then, 
for these are the very feelings that ought to bring 
you near to Jesus. He loves to show himself to 
just such humble and penitent souls as yours. 
And if you '^ deny him/^ he will turn his melting 
eyes of reproachful tenderness upon you. He will 
upbraid you for your unbelief. He will upbraid 
you for that self-righteous spirit which would lead 
you to trust to your own worthiness as a ground 
of acceptance. Then when you come back to him 
in penitence he will welcome you with great glad- 
ness. 

Feel just as humble, just as poor, just as un- 
worthy as you please; the more of these feelings 
you have, with the greater alacrity should you 
come to the table of the Lord. There, ^^ under 
the shadow of his cross,^^ you will find '^ beauty 
for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, and the 
garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.'^ 
Jesus will no longer fix his eyes on you in that 
reproachful way, but God will smile upon you. 
The Master will look upon you with that same 
sweet compassion with which he regarded ^^that 
disciple whom he loved." He will draw you to 



144 A WORD TO THE WEARY. 

his bosom as he did that favored one at the in- 
stitution of the feast, and then you will come 
away from that table nearer to Gody nearer to 
Christ and nearer to heaven. 

" Beware of Peter's word, 

Nor confidently say, 
* I never will deny my Lord/ 
But, * Grant I never may.' " 



CHAPTER X. 

A WOKD TO THE PENITENT. 

/^UR Lord was crucified, dead and buried. But 
on Sunday morning the women had come very 
early to the grave, and, to their surprise, the stone 
was rolled away and the body was gone. There 
sat two angels clothed in long white garments, 
and the women were affrighted. But one of the 
angels "saith unto them. Be not affrighted: ye 
seek Jesus of Nazareth which was crucified ; he 
is risen ; he is not here ; behold the place where 
they laid him.^^ 

That was a plain statement of facts, for the 
women saw and heard these things, and, being 
wide awake, they felt so sure of what was said 
that they were affrighted. And among the strang- 
est words spoken by the angel were these : " But 
go your way, tell his disciples and Peter that he 
goeth before you into Galilee; there shall ye see 
him, as he said unto you.'' 

'^Tell his disciples and Peter/' Tell them all, 
but be sure and tell Peter. Give him a special 

10 ' 145 



146 A WORD TO THE WEARY. 

message. Who was Peter, and why was this 
special message sent by the risen Lord and Master 
to such a man? 

Peter was the disciple who had made himself 
more conspicuous than any of the others except 
Judas Iscariot; and he, having betrayed Christ, 
had hanged himself and gone ^' to his own place.'^ 
Peter was the man who, with a self-conscious im- 
pulse, had contradicted the Master when he told 
them that all the disciples would forsake him. 
He it was who said, '^ Though all the world deny 
thee, yet will not I deny thee/^ He it was to 
whom the Saviour said at the time, ^^ Simon, Satan 
hath desired to have thee, that he might sift thee 
as wheat; but I have prayed for thee, that thy 
faith fail not; and when thou art converted, 
strengthen thy brethren.'' Peter was the man 
who confronted the mob and cut off the ear of 
Malchus, a servant of the high priest. 

But after this Peter was among those who 
forsook him and fled. And after this Peter was 
the one who denied three times, and at last cursed 
and swore that he knew not the man. Peter 
was the man who heard the cock crow and re- 
membered the words of Jesus, and saw him as 
he turned and looked at him at that strange signal. 



A WORD TO THE PENITENT, 147 

And when he saw and felt that searching, pene- 
trating gaze, it was Peter who " went out and 
wept bitterly/' A poor, broken-hearted, self-ac- 
cused, self-convicted culprit, he could not stand 
that reproachful gaze, and so he went out into 
the darkness and wxpt as if his heart would 
break. 

When a man has passed through such a con- 
tradictory experience as that, it is not strange 
that he felt uncertain as to how the risen Lord 
would look upon him. Peter must have felt that 
he had forfeited all Christ's respect and esteem, 
and was totally unworthy of his confidence and 
love. It would not have been strange had the 
Lord disowned and disinherited him for ever. 
Had sudden vengeance seized him, it would have 
been as deserved as the w^ath that fell upon 
Ananias and Sapphira. 

Ah ! Peter knew Christ too well for that. He 
had known him for three years, and had felt the 
magic spell of his godly walk and conversation 
during all these years. Peter had been rebuked 
before, and his restive and impetuous soul had 
often felt the witchery of those pensive eyes and 
the music of that plaintive voice. He could not 
conceive of Jesus as any one else than the warm, 



148 A WOBD TO THE WE A BY. 

loving, tender-hearted friend who had been with 
him through all these years that were gone. 

And, besides, hard, impetuous, wicked and pro- 
fane as Peter knew he had been, there was also 
a consciousness of the deepest and heartiest re- 
pentance. That awful scene of the denial could 
never be blotted from his memory. It was brand- 
ed there as by heated iron, and he knew that 
nothing could ever obliterate it. 

But the blood that was shed by the mob, and 
the blood that was shed by the crown of thorns, 
and the blood that was shed on the cross — this 
blood was all shed to blot out such a fearful sin 
as that. And with a true, heart-broken penitence 
Peter was ready to trust to the pardon of One who 
had pardoned him so often before. He was ready 
to trust in One who had proved himself so worthy 
of his trust ever since he had known him and 
loved him. 

But, while Peter may have felt all this, how are 
we to account for that special mark of love which 
he was now to receive from his risen Lord ? Why 
did the angel not say, " Go your way, tell his dis- 
ciples and John that he goeth before you into 
Galilee ^^? John was the first to recognize Jesus 
on the seashore when he appeared to the disciples. 



A WOBD TO THE PENITENT. 149 

John seems to have been more like him than 
any of the others, and he was emphatically " that 
disciple whom Jesus loved/' 

Ah, yes ! But John would not need any such 
message to bring reassurance to him. John had 
never denied the Master, and he knew beyond all 
doubt that the Lord had loved him to the end, 
and so needed no further confirmation. But Peter 
did, and the Lord knew how he had gone out 
and wept, in bitterness of soul, at the remem- 
brance of his base ingratitude and his fearful sin. 
And to reassure him and to confirm and re-es- 
tablish his waning, flickering faith, he sent him 
this special message by the mouth of an ^angel. 

The fact is, the gospel is founded on the ideas 
that are embodied in the parables of "The Lost 
Piece of Money,'' "The Lost Sheep" and "The 
Prodigal Son." In all these there is a sharp and 
striking contrast between what was lost and what 
was not lost. The woman who had lost one piece 
left the nine. The shepherd who had lost one 
sheep left the ninety and nine. The father who 
had lost one son as a prodigal was aware of the 
fact that the elder son was still at home, but the 
one who was an exile, a prodigal and an out- 
cast cost him more care and more anxiety, and he 



150 A WORD TO THE WEARY, 

seemed to be more rejoiced at the return of the 
renegade than he had ever been at the dutiful 
conduct of the one who stayed at home. The 
gospel is a remedy. " The whole need not a 
physician, but they that are sick/' ^^ Where sin 
abounded, there did grace much more abound.'^ 
These other disciples had all acted badly, but 
Peter had acted worse than all the other ten put 
together. They had forsaken Christ in the terror 
and confusion of his arrest, but Peter had ^^ denied 
him with an oath '^ after the loudest professions of 
love and loyalty. 

This is true in pastoral life. Those members 
who are blameless and circumspect we can afford 
to leave to their sense of duty and to their own 
love for Christ and his Church. But those who 
are unstable as water, constantly fluctuating be- 
tween right and wrong, falling and then rising 
again, backslidiug and recovering themselves, re- 
penting and then sinning again — these are the 
ones who demand and receive more care, more 
thought, more anxiety and more earnest and im- 
portunate prayer than all the rest of them put 
together. 

Oh, if God's people would only do what they 
know is right, and never do what they fear may 



A WORD TO THE PENITENT. 151 

be wrong ! If they would but keep in the nar- 
row way, would but stay in the fold, would only 
keep from getting lost, what a good, peaceful, 
pleasant time Christian pastors would have! 

No lost piece of money to look for, no wan- 
dering sheep to be hunting after, no prodigal, gone 
away to a vicious life, for us to be watching 
for, praying for and waiting for until he gets 
back home ! No goats among the sheep ! No 
tares among the wheat ! No sowing of wild oats, 
for a harvest of sorrow to be reaped by and by ! 
No Judas to betray the Master, and no Peter to 
deny him, but all as one family serving him in 
mutual love on earth, at last to meet together 
and sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob 
in the kingdom of God for ever ! 

The Lord had a great work for Peter to do, 
and he was preparing him for that work. Peter 
had always been a quick, impulsive, impetuous 
man, and when that kind of a man is really and 
truly changed by God's grace, he is apt to be- 
come one of the most useful and one of the 
most resolute defenders of the faith. Before his 
denial he had been truly regenerated, and when 
he was converted he did strengthen his brethren. 

The Lord knew that such would be the case. 



152 A WORD TO THE WEARY. 

and hence he sent him this tender message to as- 
sure him that he had not forgotten him. Christ 
wanted to assure his servant that he had freely 
forgiven him, and that he would never leave nor 
forsake him in the future. 

It must have surprised Peter, and even astound- 
ed him. But it would be a very strong proof 
of his Master's unchanging and unchangeable love. 
It would arouse all the manly graces of Peter's 
renewed heart. It would kindle afresh all that 
zeal and devotion that had gone into a sudden 
eclipse. It would start him forth as a more de- 
voted friend and follower of Christ than h^ had 
even been before. It would cause him to have 
a stronger faith than he had in his loyallest days 
in the past. It would inspire him with a more 
earnest purpose of heart than had ever moved him 
in bygone days to devote all his ransomed powers 
to the spread of that gospel which had saved him 
from such a grievous fall. 

That hour of darkness when ^Mie went out 
and wept bitterly " was the turning-point in Peter's 
apostolic life. Before that he had been "born 
again," but that night and that scene were to 
him like the night which Jacob spent '^ wrestling 
with the angel of the covenant/^ for from that 



A WORD TO THE PENITENT, 153 

day forward Peter seemed to have new power 
with God, and was able, as a ^^ prince with God/^ 
to prevail over all the enemies of the gospel of 
Jesus Christ our Lord. 

And when they did meet in Galilee, to the 
question, three times asked, he could look into 
that Master's eye and say, ^* Lord, thou knowest 
all things ; thou knowest that I love thee/' May 
God give us all that grace which shall enable us 
to say the same ! 



I 



PART V. 

LOVE-MESSAGES FROM PAUL. 



LOVE-MESSAGES FROM PAUL 



EoMANS, Chapter 16. 



rpHE best way, and, I may say, the only proper 
^ way, to read PauFs Epistles is to read the 
whole of one epistle at a sitting. If you have 
never tried it, you will be surprised at your ex- 
perience in that line. There is first an exor- 
dium, then the discussion of some great doctrine 
or doctrines, and then the personal application 
of the practical lessons to be deduced. 

In this ^' Epistle to the Romans ^^ Paul discusses 
almost all the cardinal doctrines of redemption, 
justification, sanctification, predestination, election, 
perseverance of the saints, and so on. Then come 
some of the most wholesome practical lessons that 
can be impressed on the human conscience and 
heart. 

But after getting through with all these Paul 
concludes with the words of salutation which are 
contained in the sixteenth chapter. When we read 
them over we cannot help wondering why it was 

157 



158 LOVE-MESSAGES FROM PAUL. 

that such a man as Paul should have thought of 
so many persons at the close of such a discussion, 
and, stranger still, why it was that the Holy 
Ghost should have caused him or allowed him 
to write out all these messages as a part of the 
Bible itself. 

He might have sent these salutations by word 
of mouth, or he might have written them on 
a separate piece of parchment. But w^hat was 
the use of making them a part of the Bible? 
Who knows or cares about Phebe or Priscilla 
and Aquila or Narcissus or Andronicus and Junia 
or Tryphena and Tryphosa? Some of them are 
mentioned in other places, but most of them are 
not. And if the Bible does not tell us the name 
of Lot^s wife, or the name of Job^s wife, or the 
name of the Syro-Phoenician woman, why should 
it tell us the names of all these men and women 
who had been the personal friends and ac- 
quaintances of the apostle Paul? 

There must have been thousands of men and 
women who had met him and entertained him in 
the different places where he had preached the 
gospel and organized churches. When at Miletus 
he ^^ sent to Ephesus, and called the elders of the 
church,'^ but their names are not recorded. Why 



LOVE-MESSAGES FROM PAUL. 159 

is it, then, that these persons, thirty-five in all, 
are mentioned by name in this one chapter? 

There must have been some object in this, for 
in writing the Bible God would not put there 
what was redundant. And hence we may rest 
assured that there was, that there must have 
been, a good reason for this list of names. 

I. There was something about each one of 
them which endeared these persons to Paul, because 
they had helped him in his Christian and apostolic 
work. Some had helped in one way and some in 
another, but all had done something to advance 
the work of saving souls, 

^^I commend unto you Phebe our sister, which 
is a servant of the church which is at Cenchrea.^' 
'' Greet Priscilla and Aquila, my helpers in Christ 
Jesus ; who have for my life laid down their own 
necks'^ (i. e. risked their own lives somewhere, 
but he does not say where). These are mention- 
ed in four different places in the Bible. ^^ Like- 
wise, greet the church that is in their house,'^ 
meaning either that this was a very peculiar and 
prominent Christian family, or that a small church, 
or what was afterward called a "conventicle,^' 
met regularly for worship in the house of these 
good people. 



160 LOVE-MESSAGES FROM PAUL, 

^^ Greet Mary, who bestowed much labor on 
us/^ *^ Salute Andronicus aud Junia, my kins- 
men, and my fellow-prisoners, who are of note 
among the apostles, who also were in Christ be- 
fore me.'^ Where they had been imprisoned 
with him we cannot tell. Paul was frequently 
in prison — tradition says seven times — but where 
it was and when it was that these friends had 
shared his imprisonment he does not tell us. It 
was enough to let the brethren at Rome know 
that there were two of his brethren there who, 
for the sake of the gospel, had been in prison for 
Christ, and could therefore be trusted when the 
trial came. 

And thus we might take up one case after 
another, and we would find that all these personal 
messages are based on some good deeds of the 
persons, which showed their love not only for 
Paul, but for Paul's Master, and for the Church 
which Paul and the Master both loved more than 
they did their own lives. Some were Greeks, and 
some were Romans and some were Jews; some 
were men and some were women ; some had done 
one thing and some had done another to show that 
they loved Christ, and that they loved Paul for 
Christ's sake. And just as we have in the eleventh 



LOVE-MESSAGES FROM PAUL. 161 

chapter of Hebrews what has been called " a mus- 
ter-roll of Old Testament saints ^' who were re- 
markable for their faith, so here we have a muster- 
roll of PauFs personal friends who had been '' fel- 
low-helpers to the truth/^ They were not apostles, 
and if any of them were elders or deacons, Paul 
does not tell us the fact. But they were good men 
and good women who had helped him in his work, 
and who he knew could be relied on, as true as steel, 
whenever the time might come that demanded the 
stuff that martyrs are made of. 

Some of them were tent-makers, as he was, and 
they had worked with him at the same trade while 
he was preaching the gospel. Some of them had 
entertained him as their guest at their own old 
homes. Some of them had suffered with him, and 
had actually risked their own lives in defence of 
and for the sake of the gospel. 

It is more than probable that most of them had 
been converted under PauFs preaching ; but if so, 
unlike many of our modern evangelists, he says 
nothing about that. He is talking about how he 
loved them for their work's sake; how he felt 
grateful to them for all the help they had ren- 
dered in his great work, where the fields were 

white unto the harvest and the laborers were few. 
11 



162 LOVE-MESSAGES FROM PAUL. 

It was not Paul, but PauPs Master as personified 
in Paul, who was telling these good men and 
women how he looked upon them, how he had 
been cared for, how he had been loved, how he 
had been treated, how he had been helped, in all 
that they had done and suffered along with Paul. 
Paul was but a mouthpiece for the Lord Jesus 
Christ, just as Tertius was an amanuensis for Paul 
when he was writing this epistle. Paul did not 
write much himself, but only dictated what 
others* wrote; and he only dictated as the Sj)irit 
gave him utterance and what the Spirit told him 
to write. 

If one of those original manuscripts could be 
found, the body of it would not be in PauFs 
handwriting ; but at the close he took the pen or 
stylus and, as he says, "with mine own hand'^ he 
added the benediction and thus authenticated the 
whole. In one of these epistles, that to the Gala- 
tians, he says, as if it were known to be an unusual 
thing, " See with how large letters I have written 
unto you with mine own hand.'^ 

But, whether written by Paul or written by a 
scribe, the epistles were always dictated by Paul 
and as '^ he was moved by the Holy Ghost.^^ So, 
when we read over these names of good men and 



LOVE-MESSAGES FROM PAUL, 163 

good women, aod the record of some kindly deed 
done to the apostle, we can "read between the 
lines," in a still clearer and more luminous 
handwriting, " Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch 
as ye have done it unto one of the least of these, 
my brethren, ye have done it unto me.'^ 

II. In the light of that grand truth, what a 
volume is compressed into each of these sentences 
of commendation ! Let us look at a few of these, 
as types of all the rest. 

"I commend unto you Phebe our sister, which 
is a servant of the church which is at Cenchrea." 
What more touching epitaph could Phebe have 
asked for if she had known that Paul, and the 
God of Paul, would write that upon her tomb- 
stone — better still, upon a page of the Bible ! 
Nobody knows, and nobody cares, where Phebe 
was buried. Her body turned to ashes eigh- 
teen hundred years ago, and if there ever was a 
marble slab to mark the grave at Cenchrea or at 
Rome, there may have been a thousand Phebes 
since then. But God knows, the Lord Jesus 
knows, and I think Paul in heaven knows too, 
the Phebe he meant when God told him to say 
that about Phebe when he was closing up his 
Epistle to the Romans. 



164 LOVE-MESSAGES FROM PAUL, 

"I commend unto you Phebe our sister, which 
is a servant of the church/^ Oh, how the church 
people at Rome, when they met this good woman 
and read what Paul said about her, must have 
felt toward a woman who could stir the great 
heart of that strong but loving apostle of whom 
they had heard so much ! And even when we sit 
down now and slowly read over the words, ^'I 
commend unto you Phebe our sister, which is a 
servant of the church,'^ how sweet and holy and 
loving and tender is the face that greets us, and 
what a warm welcome each of us would give her 
to our churches and our homes, were Phebe, 
Paul's sister and ours, and sister of our Lord 
Jesus Christ, to make her appearance in our 
midst after having received such words of com- 
mendation to us from Paul ! 

^^A servant of the church/' Whether a maiden 
lady, a married woman or a widow he does not 
choose to tell, nor does it matter. She was ^^a 
servant of the church'' — ^not its mistress, but its 
servant ; not anxious to rule it, but ready to be 
ruled by it. Not too proud to be a servant, not 
too busy at home to give any time to it, not a 
woman of fashion, a " society woman," a ^' busy- 
body with other people's matters" or a gadder- 



LOVE-MESSAGES FROM PAUL. 165 

about or a stay-at-home when the church was at 
work or at worship, but " a servant of the church/^ 

She may have been a poor woman, or she may 
have been a rich woman ; she may have had a 
house full of children, or she may have had none; 
she may have been a Christian teacher, or she may 
have been a woman of elegant leisure as the world 
goes, but she was '^ a servant of the church,'^ and 
there is not a woman, young or old, married or 
single, who does not know just what Paul meant 
when he wrote those words ; and there is not one 
who does not know whether, if Paul were here 
and acquainted with you as he was with Phebe, 
he would write that of you. 

"A servant of the church/^ Some think she 
was a deaconess. But if she was, she must have 
made herself so useful that she was chosen to the 
office on the ground of merit. If they had a 
"sewing-circle,^^ she was a member of that, as 
Dorcas was at Joppa. If they had had what we 
now call a Sunday-school, or what they called a 
class of catechumens or young converts, Phebe no 
doubt was one of the teachers. When strangers 
moved to Cenchrea, Phebe could find time to visit 
them and invite them to come to church, and ask 
the other women to call to see them. If anybody 



166 LOVE-MESSAGES FROM PAUL. 

was sick or in trouble or needed a word of sym- 
pathy or some little help^ Phebe was ready to give 
the required help^ or else to get it from those who 
were able and willing to grant it. She was a good 
womaUj and she was a servant of the church to 
which she belonged. And as a pastor of thirty 
years' experience, I am not surprised that Paul 
wrote so kindly of Phebe when this good sister was 
about to visit Rome. 

It is my custom, as it is that of many others, 
when the Session dismisses a member, to write a 
few words of commendation as strong and compli- 
mentary as I can, and sign it as pastor. But we 
pastors always dislike to write such a letter for a 
Phebe, because we need such helpers in our own 
churches. And yet many of us have written 
words just as true and just as commendatory of 
some whose going from us was a great loss, and 
whose accession was a great gain to the other 
churches to whose care we dismissed them. 

What kind of a letter would conscience con- 
strain your pastor to write about you if God were 
to transfer your lot to some other church ? Could 
he write as lovingly and as tenderly of you as 
Paul did of Phebe? And if not, why not? 
Are you only a woman? So was Phebe. Are 



L VE-MESSA GES FR OM PA UL. 167 

you not a very brilliant woman? Paul does not 
commend Phebe on account of her remarkable 
brilliancy. Are you not a rich woman ? I have 
no idea that Phebe was. She was going to Eome 
on some kind of business^ and Paul writes, ^^ That 
ye receive her in the Lord as becometh saints, 
and that ye assist her in whatsoever business she 
hath need of you ; for she hath been a succorer 
of many, and of myself also.^^ She has been 
very kind and generous to others, and to me 
as an apostle, and because she is a good woman, 
and ^^the servant of the church at Cenchrea," I 
want you to receive her kindly and treat her 
kindly and help her all you can, not merely for 
her own sake, but for the sake of our common 
Lord and Master. 

^^ Salute Priscilla and Aquila, my helpers in 
Christ Jesus.^^ It may have been merely an act 
of courtesy to write the wife's name first, or it 
may be that, in thinking about them and sending 
his apostolic greeting in this place, Priscilla seemed 
to him to have been more of a helper in Christ 
Jesus than Aquila had been. Such is sometimes 
the case, and while officially " the husband is the 
head of the wife '' and of the house, and really 
ought to be religiously, it is often the other 



168 LOVE-MESSAGES FROM PAUL, 

way. ^^The church that is in their house '^ was 
what Paul was thinking of, and while Aquila 
was a Christian, it may have been in their case, 
as it is in so many cases now, that the wife had 
learned to ^'show more piety at home^' than the 
husband. 

Paul had frequently been with them. He 
seems to have met them first at Corinth. At 
that time, by an edict of Claudius, they had been 
exiled from Rome because they were Jews. Here, 
as tent-makers, they worked together while Paul 
also preached. Then they met again at Ephesus, 
and while Paul had gone to Galatia and Phrygia 
there came along a man named Apollos, who was 
^' an eloquent man, and mighty in the Scriptures.'^ 
He was a Jew, born in Alexandria, but he seems 
to have progressed in gospel knowledge no further 
than ^^ John's baptism.'' 

When Aquila and Priscilla heard him, and 
saw where the trouble was, they took him home 
^' and expounded unto him the way of God more 
perfectly." And the next account of him was that 
he was in Achaia, and these words describe the 
radical and marvelous change that had come 
about : ^' For he mightily convinced the Jews, 
and that publicly, showing by the Scriptures that 



LOVE-MESSAGES FROM PAUL. 169 

Jesus was the Christ/^ This is one reason why- 
Canon Farrar thinks Apollos was the author of 
the " Epistle to the Hebrews/^ 

Be that as it may, Apollos became such a fa- 
vorite at Corinth that Paul had to write, "Who 
then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers 
by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to 
every man ? I have planted, Apollos watered ; 
but God gave the increase.^^ 

Here, then, was a man who actually became a 
popular rival to Paul himself, and yet that man 
had learned the gospel in that little theological 
seminary taught by Aquila and Priscilla in their 
own house at Ephesus. No wonder that now, 
when this pious couple had gone back to Rome 
and started "a church in their house ^^ there, Paul 
should send them such a loving message as this : 
" Greet Priscilla and Aquila, my helpers in Christ 
Jesus, who have for my life laid down their own 
necks, unto whom not only I give thanks, but 
also all the churches of the Gentiles, Likewise 
greet the church that is in their house." 

And now let me ask you. How about that 
"church in the house '^ so far as vour home is 
concerned? Ls the husband a member? Is the 
wife a member? Are all the children who are 



170 LOVE-MESSAGES FROM PAUL. 

old enough members? Is there family worship 
and Bible reading and study, and are all the rules 
and regulations based on Christian principles? 
Is the whole atmosphere of the home distinctly 
religious? Is there such an air of piety pervad- 
ing all the social home life as would make that 
home such a place that Paul would love to stay 
there? Is it like the home at Bethany where 
our Lord was so glad to find a resting-place, 
and where Martha as well as Mary was always 
glad to see him? Is your knowledge of the 
Bible such that you could take another Apollos, 
a converted Jew, to your own home, and throw 
such a flood of light on the plan of redemption 
as to send him forth qualified to show that Jesus 
was the Christ? 

That was just what was done by Aquila and 
Priscilla ; and surely our homes in such an age 
and such a land as this, with Bibles and Sunday- 
school periodicals and religious papers and books 
all over the house, ought to be ^^ a church in the 
house.'^ And we ought to be as well able to lead 
a poor, unconverted man into the light and liberty 
of the truth, '^ the truth that can make him free,'^ 
as were these poor tent-makers who had lived 
and worked and taught in the city of Ephesus. 



LOVE'MESSAGES FROM PAUL, 171 

Thus might we go on from one to another of 
all whom Paul calls by name, and we would 
find that there was something in the case of each 
one which made the person dear to the Apostle. 
Such terms as these are scattered through the chap- 
ter : " My beloved in the Lord f " our helpers 
in Christ;" "approved in Christ;'' "which la- 
bored much in the Lord ;" " Salute Rufus, chosen 
in the Lord, and his mother aud mine" — some 
old mother in Israel who had been a kind of 
mother to Paul as well as to her own son. 

And thus, with a warm and grateful remem- 
brance, he calls up these old friends and com- 
rades who had stood by him and bravely and 
nobly fought with him in those old battles which 
he could never forget. 

It was not always thus, for in writing to Timothy 
he says, " Demas hath forsaken me, having loved 
this present world." And in another place he 
says, "Alexander, the coppersmith, did me much 
evil ; the Lord reward him according to his 
works." Paul had not the heart to do more him- 
self, but w^ith a sad and sorrowful remembrance 
he was willing to trust God with that retributive 
justice which belongs not to men, but to God 
himself, and he felt sure that God would attend 



172 LOYE'MESSAGES FROM PAUL, 

to that matter a great deal better than he could 
himself. 

But while he could not feel resentment at per- 
sonal wrongs, in this chapter he seems to recall 
the names and deeds of many who had befriended 
and helped him and stood by him in the various 
places where they had ^^ labored together in the 
gospel/' And so, after hoping that they would 
be " wise unto that which is good, and simple 
concerning evil/' he says, '' The grace of our Lord 
Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen/' 

These things were for our instruction. What 
practical lessons are to be drawn from these love- 
messages of Paul? 

(a) We are all making our mark on the Church 
and on the age in which we now live, as we have 
already done in the past. 

When a pastor leaves one church to take charge 
of another, it is delightful to him to hear kind 
words spoken of those who liave gone before 
him. Whatever errors these predecessors had com- 
mitted seem to be forgotten or buried in their 
graves, and only the loving words and faithful 
warnings and blameless lives they lived seem to 
come back to the memory of those with whom 
their "memory is precious/' 



LOVE-MESSAGES FROM PAUL. 173 

By and by your pastor will be gone too — it may 
be to some other field of labor, it may be to his final 
rest. If he is a fearless and faithful watchman, he 
will be content and satisfied if to his successor you 
can say, '' He was honest, sincere and conscientious 
in what he preached. Even when his words blis- 
tered and burned, under it all he was watching 
for souls, as one who knew that he must give ac- 
count.'^ No one can deny that Paul was such a 
man; and may God grant unto all of us who 
preach the gospel the spirit of Paul ! 

(b) Sometimes in our travels we old pastors 
meet with members of some church that we have 
served. They greet us with a loving smile, and 
make us feel at home wherever they may now 
have a home. And as we sit and talk of old 
times, one would be surprised to know how ac- 
curately the character of all the prominent mem- 
bers of one^s old church have been read and known. 
The bad as well as the good are known ; and 
while mention may be made of the bad, it is apt 
to be the case that among the good the words and 
works of those who were famous for piety and 
gentleness and kindness and liberality and love 
are what serve to embalm the memory of the 
living even while they are still alive. 



174 LOVE'MESSAGES FROM PAUL. 

So, one by one, as we pastors and people 
are scattered, as these saints then at Rome had 
been ; or wlien, one by one, as they were at last, 
and we shall be at last, we are " gathered to our 
fathers,'^ what will some man as good as Paul, 
though not as great, say of us, each one of us, as 
he thinks of what we were and of what we did 
in the cause of our common Lord and Master? 
How will the church record read, and how will 
the " Book of God^s remembrance '^ read, when 
the last word and the last act of our mortal life 
has been recorded? 

Can we all say to-day what Dr. Guthrie used 
as a daily motto: 

"I live for those who love me, 

For those who know me true, 
For the heaven that smiles above me, 

And awaits my coming too ; 
For the cause that lacks assistance, 
For the wrongs that need resistance, 
For the future in the distance, 

And the good that I can do " ? 



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